


Eight Days

by Enecola



Category: Homestuck, Hunger Games - Fandom
Genre: Also lots of OCs, Gen, Some other characters are mentioned but not interacted with, it's the Hunger Games so you can be sure that there will be characters who die every once in a while
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enecola/pseuds/Enecola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Spinneret participated in the Hunger Games, they lasted no longer than eight days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fanfiction for my own Hungerstuck AU. Every Ancestor is a victor and this is about Mindfang's games.
> 
> If you find any spelling errors, please tell me. English isn't my first language so it's important for me to learn.

When Spinneret’s name was announced at the reaping she was surprisingly calm. She always imagined she’d be crying if she’d ever be picked, she’d break down in tears like she did when her brother volunteered years ago, she’d have to be carried up the wooden stairs so she could stand on the stage. But she was calm. Probably too calm. Her friends gave her irritated looks when she showed no sign of terror or at least a bit of fear, made room for her as she walked through the lines. Everyone followed her every move, she was able to take a glimpse of her parents. Her mother cried and her father was trying to comfort her, his eyes locked on his youngest child. Her.

‘Maybe that’s why I am so calm’, she thought. ‘Because mom is crying so hard, I barely feel anything.’ But she knew why she was actually relaxed. This was District 4, one of the Career Districts. There was a high possibility that one of the older girls would volunteer for her as soon as the male tribute was chosen. But nevertheless it was understandable why her mother was so upset, Spinneret wasn’t the first in her family to walk up the stairs and be greeted by Ebony Grace. Only six years ago her older brother volunteered, and he did not come back.

She climbed the last step and Ebony tried to comfort her in her own way and asked her to stay in the place she always asked the girls to stand. So she did. Spinneret Serket was small, tiny, even for her age. Only two weeks earlier she turned thirteen. Her long blonde hair seemed golden in the sunlight; her blue eyes were big and seemed even larger behind her pair of glasses. Her skin was tanned from the many days of working in the sea. The dress she wore was blue and had a lot of laces. She often said they looked like spider webs, but nobody ever agreed. Most people knew her. She was the lovely daughter of the owners of the best restaurant in town. She was popular as the cute little waitress. Everything about her appearance screamed that she did not belong on this stage. Did not belong in the Capitol, did not belong in an arena with twenty-three children trying to kill her, but there she was. They applauded nevertheless; they knew that someone would probably replace her. So she stood on the stage, waiting for the other tribute to be chosen.

Rick Hudson was his name. She knew him well. He came over to her house quite a lot. He fancied one of her sisters and he was nice enough. Spinneret could honestly say she liked him. But that wouldn’t matter anymore. With luck one of them would return home, and next to him she barely stood a chance. He was eighteen. She figured that he must hate this. He was so close to being free from this torture. Every year he had to wonder if  _he_  would be the one. He told her once that he didn’t want to participate at all, but his parents prepared him for this nevertheless. He was the fastest sprinter at school, the strongest, and the best climber. He probably also knew how to handle one or the other weapon. At school everyone feared him, the giant. He won every tournament, no matter what it was about. Nobody dared to challenge him. The best  _she_ could do was cutting open fish with a knife and swimming faster than her siblings. If her skin was tanned, his was dark tanned. His hair short and dark brown, his eye color was grey as far as she remembered. He was standing there in his best clothes. She knew that a lot of girls liked him, so she guessed he was handsome. Even her sister admitted that once, when he wasn’t there to hear it. More importantly: she knew that he nullified the possibility that some other girl would take her place.

Ebony asked for volunteers, and there even might have been one who wanted to take her place, if the male tribute wouldn’t be named Rick Hudson. Spinneret looked over to her siblings. But they turned their heads in shame. They would not risk their lives for her, and she didn’t blame them. They loved her but they loved themselves more. She wouldn’t act any different. Only three of her siblings could volunteer and only two of them could take her place. Her sisters weren’t known for their bravery. Only now she saw the rest of the crowd. Most looked at Rick and saw the new victor. The others gave her pitiful glances. ‘They already think I’m dead’, is all she could think of.

Ebony introduced them briefly to the victors of District 4, as if they wouldn’t know their names and then urged Rick and her to shake hands. Spinneret looked up to him and held her hand out immediately, Rick seemed a bit confused and only now she saw that he looked terrified, so she just took his hand and shook it as cheerful as she could, wondering  _why the hell_  she was so relaxed.

The peacekeepers guided them to separate rooms in the Justice Building. Here they were supposed to meet their families for the last time. Spinneret sat down on a big sofa. It was the biggest and most comfortable sofa she had ever seen or sat on. She wondered if anyone would mind if she would just jump around on it, and figured, yes everyone would mind. But then again, how much deader could they make her? So she jumped up and down on the sofa, until she heard the doorknob turn and she used the last jump to land on her buttocks and look as sweet and innocent as ever. Her family rushed in, her mother was so fast at her side and pressed her to her chest that Spinneret was sure she was a superhero who would save her right now. But she didn’t. All she did was cry while her father tried very hard not to. Her five siblings gathered around them. She would have seven siblings. Five brothers and two sisters, but their family wasn’t very lucky. Her oldest brother died when she was three. He ate a poisonous fish. Her other brother was killed by a girl from District 1 six years ago.

Her sisters apologized that they did not come to her aid, but she assured them it was fine. She would have done the same.

“And let’s be honest,” she said. “I couldn’t bear watching you die on the screen.” She shrugged and Lida started to cry, fully realizing what she doomed her little sister to. Leanna probably would have scolded Spinneret, but what for? She was the one going to her almost certain death. Her oldest brothers hugged her. “Please, whatever happens, before you die a terribly painful death, kill yourself first,” whispered Robert so their mother wouldn’t hear. Spinneret knew he referred to what happened six years ago, when the District 1 girl left James to die by bleeding to death. She just nodded. She wouldn’t want that to happen to herself either.

Lastly her brother Miles approached her, he was seventeen. Actually he was planning to volunteer this year, she knew that because they always had a very close relationship, which basically meant he couldn’t keep secrets from her, which basically meant he was a terrible liar, which basically meant she bugged him until he told her. She gave him her favorite dice, so he would take it with him as a token. It always brought her luck and she figured he could use a lot of that. When he saw her on that stage, of course he decided against it and now she wasn’t surprised he handed her the eight-sided dice. He hugged her close and whispered in her ear so nobody else could hear it “If you die I’ll follow you next year,” and she knew he meant it. He only let go as the peacekeeper announced that their time was up. Everyone looked at her as if they were at her funeral, and finally Spinneret couldn’t stand it anymore. She got up from the comfortable sofa and put her hands on her hips, looking like she was about to scold her entire family.

“I’m not dead yet! Jeez what kind of downers are you? Aren’t you supposed to tell me I’m going to make it? Am I the only one who thinks I can win?” at that part she lied. She was pretty sure she was doomed, but she would sure as hell try to make it as hard as possible to kill her. “You’ll see, I’ll be back and then you’ll feel really stupid for not having any faith in me!” And with that she held her head high and proud and puffed out her chest like she always did when she did something admirable. She doubted it cheered them up but at least they had the decency to smile a bit. Then they were escorted outside and she was alone. Nobody else came for her, but she didn’t mind that. She was actually glad she was alone, because the visit of her family managed to make her nervous.

‘Finally,’ she thought, closing her hand fast around her dice. ‘This could mean I have a bit of common sense left.’

 

When she was finally able to leave the room, Rick and she had to stand in front of the train for the press to snap a couple of photos. She assumed they made an odd couple. He was tall, broad-shouldered and handsome. She was tiny, delicate and adorable. She was already wondering how she was supposed to get sponsors at all. She knew that was important, but if she was honest, she never cared too much about the topic. Now she regretted it. Maybe in three years the sponsors would trip over themselves to bet on her, but now? After a few more minutes they were allowed to enter the train, they didn’t even have time to turn around and look out of the windows to see if their families were there somewhere, when the train started moving. Ebony immediately started chatting to them, telling them to follow her. Rick almost had to drag Spinneret , because she stopped everywhere to look at something new.  On their way she glanced out the window. Never had she seen something move this fast. When Ebony looked back to see what took them so long, she explained that the train moved at about blah blah blah, reaching the Capitol in less than a day, blah blah blah, delicious food, blah, stylists, blah blah blah blah. Spinneret was already bored by her. She was nice, she supposed. She loved District 4 and refused to move to another district for her carrier (but then again District 4 was one of the most popular districts anyway), she seemed to actually care for the tributes as well. When she saw the other men and women who attended to the reaping in other districts, Ebony looked like a saint, but that could also be because she also insisted white was her color and she never wore anything that was darker than rose. ‘Ironic’, Spinneret thought, ‘with that name’.

She guided them to their own chambers. Spinneret’s mouth fell open when she entered her own and only closed them when she saw herself in a mirror and decided that it looked stupid to have her mouth wide open. The first thing she checked was the size of the bathtub, which pleased her, since it was around four times bigger than the one she had at home. Ebony told her that there was still time until supper, so she didn’t hesitate to take a bath. Right after that she threw over the biggest towel she had ever seen and inspected her wardrobe. She was a little disappointed there were so few things in her size, nevertheless she chose the most pompous dress she could find and spun around in front of a mirror. She remembered her dice and placed it carefully on her nightstand. Then she returned to the mirror and while she still wondered if she looked more like a princess or like one of those pirate captains from the books she and her brother often read together, Ebony already knocked on her door to call her to supper. She chuckled when she saw Spinnerets dress and showed her the way to the dining room. Rick wasn’t there yet, but two of the victors were sitting on some very fancy chairs, the other victors must have chosen other rooms to interact so the tributes had the right environment to concentrate. They were Julia Banette and Eric Walfor, the youngest victors of District 4, both shook her hand before she sat down at the table that was overflowing with food she had never seen in her life, while Ebony went to get Rick.

There was an uncomfortable silence and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say something or if she should rather wait for Rick, but then Julia took that decision off her.

“You are very young,” she stated and Spinneret bit her tongue so she wouldn’t accidentally say something rude. “I’ve never been a mentor to someone so young. And you Eric?” She already knew the answer to that but wanted to interrupt the silence. He shook his head and simply stated: “We are very sorry that you have to go through this.”

“So am I” Spinneret shrugged. “We don’t make the rules”.

Eric looked like he wanted to say something but he was interrupted when Rick entered the room. As it turned out he dozed off. He shook their hands as well and sat down next to Spinneret. After another moment of awkward silence Ebony tried to initiate a bit of Smalltalk.

“So do you know each other? You seemed a bit familiar on the stage.”

Rick nodded. “We’ve met at school several times.”

“He likes my sister, so he tries to get her attention by being nice to me,” she said and giggled when she saw his expression. “Oh come on, it was really obvious why you helped me with my homework so much!”

“Shush you!” He looked very flustered which earned him only more laughter and the others seemed relieved that there wasn’t any horrible tension between the new tributes.

Without waiting for permission, Spinneret took advantage of the food that piled up before her. In District 4 they rarely had anything that resembled meat, that wasn’t fish. So she rammed her fork into something that she assumed was a steak, and put it on her plate. Rick looked pretty shocked about her behavior, to which she only said, “What is it now? I’m hungry!”

Ebony laughed and assured him that it was quite alright to eat. “We have more than enough food, eat what you want, but leave some space for the dessert,” she warned them. But that was easier said than done. Both of them weren’t used to such rich food and were only able to force themselves to eat the dessert. It had some fancy name, but Spinneret only cared that it tasted like chocolate.

After supper they all went to another room with a huge TV, that was probably bigger than her, Rick joked.

“I am very tall for my age!” was what Spinneret said immediately, but the looks she got from the others made it very clear that she really wasn’t.

They watched the recaps of the reapings, there wasn’t really anything outstanding about them, she thought, but when she realized that they would all be trying to kill her in about a week, she forced herself to pay attention to every single one of them. District 1 and 2 usually looked the same thanks to volunteers. A strong and capable looking boy of the age between seventeen and eighteen, and a beautiful, fierce looking girl of the same age. And in the first District they always had funny names. The District 1 boy was named Crownade and the girl Diamond. District 2 had a boy named Windrew and the girl was called Ivory. District 3 had no volunteers. A very skinny girl with dark brown hair called Beth and a boy of maybe fifteen, Spinneret couldn’t imagine what his name was spelled like. And it sounded very foreign. Then there was District 4. The announcers made a snarky remark about how Spinneret looked too young, and that she must have slipped her name in there.

It was true, Spinneret didn’t look like thirteen. For some reason she seemed more likely to be ten or eleven. When Rick mounted the stage, they seemed very certain they would have a possible victor there.

She was so angry about the fact that she was already forgotten even though she was named only a few minutes earlier, that she barely paid any attention to the remaining tributes. There was a very strong looking girl from District 7, and Spinneret probably wouldn’t even think of crossing her way in the games, if it wasn’t for her kind face. To her it seemed highly unlikely that this girl could harm anyone. A boy from District 10 gave a very similar impression. He would be capable of killing those who are strong, but he would have problems to hurt those smaller and weaker than him. Their names were Dustin and Helen. District 12 already got her pity. Those guys rarely survived the first day. And those starving faces didn’t look like they would be an exception. But then again all of the tributes she saw on TV were at least two years older than her and far taller. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to be overlooked and ignored. At least for a little while. But that clashed awfully with the fact that she needed sponsors. A little desperate she looked at her mentors, practically begging them to get her out of here. But there was no way she could escape this place now.

After a short while Julia asked them how many times their names were in the bowls. Rick had to sign up for tesserae several times. “Eighteen times. It was only a matter of time until it had to be me,” he said bitterly.

Then the attention turned to Spinneret. “My name was in there twice. My family can afford enough food. And with all the winners our district had we were able to gather quite a bit of money.”

Julia and Eric knew what she meant. They visited her parents’ restaurant often, as well as the other winners, paying for the most expensive meals. Helping the family with the many children to survive. The year her brother died they came even more often to keep them busy. When Spinneret turned 6 and learned how to write and read, she started working in the restaurant, when she wasn’t sent to go fishing with her father. Over the past seven years she gained quite a bit of pocket money, which she hid in a self-made treasure chest. Little did she know that Miles sneaked one or the other coin out of that chest to buy sweets for himself.

“That was really bad luck then,” Eric said and looked at her a bit longer.

“What’s the matter now?” Spinneret didn’t like it all that much when people stared at her face. It gave her the creeps.

“Your glasses,” he said. “They are impractical. Good thing that we’ll arrive more than half a day before the parade starts.”

She was irritated. She wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Julia was the one who explained. “You’ll be in for a little surgery. Nothing too bad. You’ll be fine. They will fix your eyes in no time, don’t worry. You’ll be grateful when you are in the arena.”

She nodded. She could imagine it would be pretty bad when her glasses got knocked off. It was already inconvenient at school, but in the arena it would be a real disadvantage. Still, surgery sounded painful and she had to admit she was very scared of the thought.

Ebony made an effort to make her feel better. “In the Capitol there are the best surgeons, it will heal in no time,” she assured her. Still a bit unsure, she decided to nod again. For a short moment she wanted to address the topic of her brother, ask if Julia was his mentor as well, but when Rick took the opportunity to ask something unrelated, she was grateful.

“So, would you care to give us some advices?” he asked.

Eric seemed to be rather excited that this question finally came up, which Spinneret found a bit creepy. But then again Eric won five years ago, one of the most violent games she could remember from the games she saw live and as recaps. Not as violent as the years Duncan Zahhak or Greg Makara won, but it was bloody enough. She remembered that Eric set a trap that impaled several tributes. The sight was terrible and she had nightmares for weeks.

“When it comes to the Cornucopia, I hope you are fast”, he said mainly to Rick. “The best things are right there in the mouth. Run, grab something and get out there as fast as possible or bond with District 1 and 2.”

“No! I probably don’t have to tell my fellow District 4 friends, but the first thing you’ll need to do is finding water,” corrected Julia. Julia won ten years ago, as far as Spinneret remembered. She went with a more defensive method in her games but was surprisingly good at killing when it came down to the last handful of tributes.

“Not everyone is lucky enough to find some idiot who trades a weapon for food, Julia.”

Rick and Spinneret glanced at each other, clearly annoyed that their mentors hadn’t taken the time to discuss the best strategy beforehand.

Ebony saw a fight boiling up, so she tried to save the situation. “How about you explain a thing or two about sponsors first?”, she suggested. Spinneret couldn’t help but starting to like Ebony. She was far more helpful than their mentors.

They spent over an hour talking about the importance of sponsors and what happens if you don’t have any. Rick would probably get tons of sponsors, seeing how tall and strong he was. She herself would have problems, is what they told her as kindly as possible. After she asked how she could get some despite her weak appearance, they told her she could still surprise everyone by getting a high score after the training or she could simply make the people in the Capitol like her.

She smiled sweetly after that. Making someone like her, that was something she was incredibly good at.

 

When she woke up, the little girl was incredibly disorientated. Why couldn’t she hear Miles snoring? What was this weird knocking noise? It was still so dark outside.

She sat up, searched blindly for her glasses and just sleepily asked “What is it?” when Ebony came in, and turned the lights on. Everything came back to her. “We are almost there sweetheart, get dressed you’ll have a great, long exciting day!” she chirped and left the room to go and wake up Rick.

Spinneret groaned, grabbed her glasses and fell back onto her bed just to roll out of it. When she got up she could see the many stars through the window. “It’s the middle of the night!”, she screeched and threw a small tantrum before she finally managed to fetch herself some decent pants and a plain red shirt. Before she left the room she stuffed the dice in one of her pockets. In the dining room of the train she met Rick, who looked like he could have used some more hours of sleep as well.

“It’s the middle of the night”, Spinneret said as pitiable as humanly possible while she put some eggs as breakfast on her plate.

Julia came into the room yawning, “We are doing this for you so you can have your surgery in time.”

Spinneret made a face and just ate her breakfast, putting more and more things she had never seen on the plate until her stomach couldn’t hold anything anymore. Rick brought her a cup of hot chocolate.  He explained to her what it was, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him, that she knew.

Eric was just as upset about the time as they were. Said in all those five years he never experienced such torture and realized too late that he shouldn’t say such a thing in front of the tributes.

“You should eat as much as you can before you enter the arena. Your body will need the energy,” he said to distract them from what he just said. Rick went to look out the window as they approached the Capitol and lifted her up when she tugged at his sleeve, so she could see as well. The city was surprisingly lively as they arrived. They seemed to wait for the arriving trains. As they spotted the tribute’s faces he let her down immediately and stepped away. It was easy to see how terrified he was. Spinneret still wanted to look at the weird looking people. She had never seen so many colors in one place and urged Eric to lift her up instead, so she could have another few glimpses at the crowd of funny men and women. Then everything went dark outside.

Ebony chirped “We’re here!” and rushed them over to the door. They must have reached some kind of tunnel near the Remake Center.

Spinneret barely even stepped out of the train when a nice looking woman with green hair and lips took her hand gently and led her away. “My name is Celia, I’m one of the members of your prep team,” she explained. Her voice was so high pitched. Much like Ebony’s accent, but Celia hissed the “s” while Ebony rarely did. She wondered why.

“Are you taking me to the surgery?” No matter how many times she thought about it, it was still frightening her.

“Yes darling. But don’t you worry, you won’t feel anything.”

They entered an elevator and all Spinneret could ask was if everyone in the Capitol got up so early.


	2. 2

Multiple hours later she was more than distressed. She couldn’t see anything. Three people were rushing around her, making her pretty and warning her that she mustn’t remove the bandages just yet. Every time she asked if something went wrong and she was blind now, Celia assured her that everything was alright, but she’d have to keep on the bandages to let her eyes heal in time. The other members of the team were Fendon and Gracia. She wanted to know what they looked like, so they made it a game that she should have to make guesses about their appearances. It kept her distracted, and her team was glad to have such a lovely and cheerful girl to work with.

They washed her long hair, cut her nails, bathed her, scrubbed her skin and she pretended to be a princess with a bunch of servants at her side.

Finally they applied a lotion and she assumed that she was ready to get dressed again, but Celia told her to wait again. She sighed and continued the guessing game. She hated being like that. Blind, barely dressed, it was cold and she was bored. Eventually someone new entered the room and her prep team left. There were footsteps circling her, so she assumed that it must be her stylist.

“It’s polite to introduce yourself,” she stated, so she could finally get a conversation going.

That must have snapped her stylist out of their state. “Oh right,” said a rather high male voice. “My name is Payon. I am your stylist.”

She decided this was not a good moment to get sassy, so she nodded. “Do I have to guess what you look like too?” she asked.

Her stylist chuckled. “Yes, I’m afraid you do. When we are done you can take off the bandages,” he promised. She couldn’t stop herself from laughing at his accent. Even the prep team was normal compared to him.

“Do you have long fake lashes?” she started.

“How did you know?”

“Almost everyone has them.”

As it turned out Payon had little interest in playing the guessing game, and wanted to get to know her instead. “What’s that in your hand?”

Suddenly she remembered that she held her tiny dice in her hand the whole time. She completely forgot about it until just now. “My token,” she replied and opened her hand for Payon to see.

He took it. “I’ll make sure you’ll have it in your games.”

“Thanks.” Wasn’t it guaranteed that she could have one thing to remind her of home? She couldn’t use it as a weapon anyway. Only as some kind of distraction at best.

“Do you like mermaids?” he asked.

Spinneret shrugged. “I guess.”

He seemed a bit disappointed by her indifference. “Don’t all girls like mermaids?”

“They are so booooooooring!” she groaned. “I like pirates better. I read a lot about pirates. Can I have a pirate outfit?”

She could only assume that he was very irritated by her unexpected interests. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” He thought for a moment. “Do you know what the original mermaids were like?” When she shook her head he made sure she’d be more interested in mermaids. “Mermaids lured men into the water, seducing them with their beauty, and when the men followed them into the water, the mermaids killed them, drowned them,” Spinneret’s smile amused him. “And do you know sirens?”

“The ladies sitting on the rocks?”

“Exactly. With their songs they baited sailors to the rocks and killed them this way.”

Her face brightened up. She could learn so much from this man.

“Would you like to be a beautiful and dangerous siren? Do you want to lure everyone into a false sense of security and then strike to kill?”, he asked playful.

“Yes!” She could only shout, jerking both her arms high above her head.

“Let’s have a snack first, what do you say?” Gently he guided her somewhere and she could smell delicious meat and things she wasn’t able to make out. It didn’t matter to her. It smelled great and it tasted even better.

He helped her with the loose fabric, wrapping it around her tiny body and spent another hour instructing the prep team where to paint little scales on her shoulders and elbows. It tickled a whole lot and she had to control herself a lot not to jerk her arms away.

She was glad to learn that she wouldn’t wear heavy make-up around her eyes, so they wouldn’t be irritated. Apparently they would take a few more days to heal completely. She didn’t complain. She hated make-up. It always made her feel sticky and gross.

Finally she was allowed to take off the nasty bandages in front of her eyes and blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust to the light. She squinted at the mirror showing her outfit. Truth be told, she looked great. Bust she had a hard time keeping her eyes open now. Not because she was tired, but because everything seemed too bright. It was like accidentally looking directly into the camera flash, or looking into the sun for too long. Only that it took much longer to wear off.

She turned around and blinked at her prep team and her stylist. “You don’t look like I guessed you at all.” They laughed.

Finally her eyes got used to the new circumstances and Celia checked if they healed properly. “You look beautiful darling”, she assured her.

“I know!” Spinneret couldn’t help but smile as wide as her lips allowed.

Rick was already waiting in front of an elevator with his stylist and his very own prep team. They let him impersonate Poseidon. So District 4’s theme this year was mythology. He seemed far more nervous than she was. When he spotted her he was relieved to see another sane person in this place full of mad people.

“How are your eyes?”

She gave him a thumbs up. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I didn’t even feel anything!”

He seemed glad for her. His stylist glanced over at her and as far as she could tell, she loved her whole appearance. Spinneret didn’t mind. It was her plan to make as many people as possible like her while she was in the Capitol. That was a way she could get sponsors. So she had to be as endearing as possible.

The stylist came over to her to shake her hand. “My name is Dilera”

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Spinneret.”

Dilera chuckled.

They entered the elevator and made their way down to the bottom of the building.

 Payon had to convince her not to try to climb onto the white horses and instead stand in her spot in the chariot. Their stylists made sure their outfits looked perfect. She glanced around and saw Julia and Eric passing by. They were busy talking and she had the feeling they weren’t even paying attention to them. She found that disappointing, but she saw that none of the mentors paid any mind to the tributes. It seemed like there was not much to worry about. They already made their way to the Training Center.

The opening music began to play, it was so loud Rick almost fell off the chariot. Spinneret always associated him with a lion or a bear, but today he reminded her of a rabbit. “It’s going to be alright, they’ll love you!” Dilera felt perfectly confident.

Then the horses began to move and finally even Spinnerets heart began to race. She wondered what the strange Capitol citizens would think of her. Would they like her? She looked up. Colorful people everywhere. To her left, to her right. They were shown on the screens and they could hear people screaming their names. Mostly Rick’s of course. He seemed most likely to win. So she decided that she would steal some of his fans while he was stiff and only stared right in front of him, like a scared animal. She lifted her arms up and waved at all the colorful dots, pulling her lips into her most beautiful smile that gained her so much pocket money that she lost count. And it worked. Less people shouted his name, more looked up hers in the program probably found on their seats. She was showered in admiration and adoration, just as she wanted it to be. They shouted her name so often it stopped sounding like Spinneret and began to sound like 'spin'.

She was glad that she got as much attention as the girl from District 2. She could see how the poor girl Beth was overlooked, but she couldn’t bring herself to bother enough. These were the Hunger Games, and they were already fighting hard to survive.

Eventually they reached the City Center and the horses began to circle in front of President English’s mansion. A terrifying building, even on the little TV they had at home. But now that she was right in front of it, she felt like she could be crushed by it at any moment. The crowd kept cheering for their favorite champions, and she was pleased to hear that her name was still one of the more prominent names. Crownade, Ivory, Rick, Diamond, Dustin, Windrew, Spinneret, Helen. She did it. She was one of the favorites. And she was by far the youngest of them. She had a hard time wiping her grin off her face, so she just left it. Whenever the screen showed her, the crowd cheered her name and made sounds of adoration.

The music ended and President English approached the balcony of his mansion to give a quick welcome speech. He was a gigantic man with dark skin and a bald head. Spinneret noticed that one of his teeth was golden and she found it looked ridiculous.

The national anthem of Panem played when the chariots took one last round and then disappeared into the Training Center. Their new home.

They almost fell off the chariot when the horses stopped at once. Spinneret felt dizzy from all the excitement she just experienced. Their legs were shaking as they got off the chariot and were welcomed by their mentors, Ebony, and their stylists. Everyone went completely nuts about how well it went. Now she could actually see the other mentors. She was curious what they were like when there wasn’t a screen in front of them. She decided that most of them looked uglier. But then again, they were all victors and fought to the death, and more importantly survived. Who cared how old and weird they might have gotten? She definitely didn’t.

Then she spotted him. He may have been from a completely different District and she had no reason to talk to him, but her whole team was preoccupied by Rick, so she had nothing to do here either. She sneaked over to the chariot of District 7 and pulled on the sleeve of the man she knew was Duncan Zahhak. He was way bigger than she imagined him, and he looked quite scary, the way he looked down to her, so she put on her most adorable smile and held out her hand. What she could tell from his behavior on screen was that he was socially awkward, but if she was honest, she always admired him. He hesitated but took her tiny hand in his and shook it. “Can I help you, little lady?” he asked.

“I’m Spinneret!” she said proudly. “I’m a big fan of yours!”

He looked at her as if she was mentally confused.

“Your machines and robots!” she explained. “I always see them on television and I love them.”

“Thank you”, was all he said. She knew he had trouble talking to people, but that he’d start sweating this heavily only because someone praised his work, that was a tiny bit concerning.

“It’s a great honor to meet you, you know?” she chattered on, ignoring that the tributes from District 7 shot her weird looks. This was a once in a lifetime chance to talk to this victor and they wouldn’t make it any less worthwhile.

“Is it now?”

“Oh yes, you know, my parents always told me I was born the day you won your games. And whenever I saw you on television I was really excited! And when I learned about your machines, I always wanted to have one! But of course we couldn’t afford them. But I liked them nevertheless!”

Obviously Duncan was a bit baffled by the talkative girl right in front of him, so he only kept stammering “Thank you” over and over.

“Well then! It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Zahhak. But I think I have to get back to my district,” with these words she lifted her hand to wave him good bye and turned out. She made her way back to her chariot, only to see that someone made sure they stood in her way. She looked up to see the scarred face of last year’s victor. Whatshisface Ampora from District 2.

“And what are you doing here?” His voice either got more annoying over the past year or it was less terrible on television. She decided that she should just ignore him and started making her way around him, which he obviously didn’t like. He grabbed her arm. “I asked you something.”

“And I didn’t answer.” She already knew she couldn’t stand him, and she was partly hoping she wouldn’t have to see him again. Chances for that were pretty good. But then again, she didn’t plan on dying this fast.

He made a face at her and pulled her closer to him. “Do you think this is funny, missy?”

Spinneret was determined not to give him the satisfaction of looking scared, so she just looked him in the eye and shrugged. “To be honest, yes I do. Do you like harassing little girls?”

“Harassi- I’m not!”

She raised her eyebrows and she made a subtle gesture to the arm he still held on to. She could have made a scene, but she already decided that her strategy would consist of being as invisible as possible to the other tributes.

Thankfully he let go of her arm and instead scanned her. “Aren’t you a little too young to be a tribute?”

“I’m 13!”

He seemed to think for a bit. “You’re pretty cute, you know that?”

She rolled her eyes and immediately wished she hadn’t. There was a stinging pain when she moved her eyes too much. “Yes I know. And you’re a creep.” With that she ‘accidentally’ stepped on his foot and hurried over to the District 4 place. She didn’t even know what that guy wanted from her.

They hadn’t yet noticed her absence, that’s how much they focused on Rick. She sighed. It would be nice if they didn’t show her _that_ directly that she had no chance of winning compared to him.

She waited a few more minutes and then they made their way to the elevator. The fourth floor was all theirs.

Never had she seen rooms this big. Ebony started to talk about what they could do in here, while Julia and Eric pushed past them to get ready for dinner. Meanwhile the two tributes admired the floor, the walls, the pictures, the flat.

Without warning Spinneret sprinted forwards to her quarters to check how big the bathtub was, wondering if they were bigger for District 4. No matter the answer to that question, the tub was huge. She sent her dress flying across the room, there was a tub waiting for her to use it!

She scrubbed the scales off her skin, which was a harder job than she assumed. Then she remembered that the Capitol people probably had some kind of soap that was actually useful.

An hour later she managed to flood her entire bathroom with water and rainbow-colored bubbles. When she got out she had a hard time not slipping on the ground.

She didn’t even need to bother getting herself a towel. She could just let technology do the work and dry her in only seconds. But she didn’t like that method very much. She would get back to using towels next time.

The wardrobe in this room had far more clothes her size than the one on the train to her great enjoyment. Like last time she tried to make a really nice pirate costume out of the given clothes. She spread the contents of the wardrobe over the entire room and when she was called for dinner she wore the most pirate-y things she could find. Ebony seemed disappointed in her choice of clothes, but had the decency not to address it.

As they entered the dining room, everyone else was already sitting at a large table, overflowing with food. She sat down next to Rick, who changed into a very plain outfit. Julia and Eric still showered their stylists with praise. She wondered why. It went well, but why would you go on for hours about that? As they started to eat they complimented the tributes for their performances.

As it turned out, they mistook Ricks fear for determination. She shrugged. To tell the difference with him, you apparently needed to know him better. They also applauded Spinneret for her perfect impression. Ebony mentioned that quite a few “someone’s in the Capitol” showed interest in her. Mostly Rick of course, but she was clearly not overlooked by them.

Somehow she had the feeling that the stylists and Ebony were the only ones who cared to make sure she’d stand a chance in the Hunger Games. Both her mentors only focused on Rick.

“Hey!” She waved with a fork in the general direction of her mentors. “Shouldn’t you maybe start working with me as well? I know Rick looks like a greaaaaaaaat victor and all, but can’t you at least pretend that I have at least a tiny chance of winning?” To her great annoyance she sounded much friendlier than she intended to. Surprisingly it had an even greater effect on them than she had hoped. They almost seemed scared for a moment. She didn’t understand why it worked that way, but she wasn’t going to complain.

“We didn’t mean to-“, began Eric.

“We know exactly what you meant to. There can only be one winner” Spinneret was surprised that Rick started talking. “But she’s right. If I don’t make it, I want her to win. So make sure she’s as prepared as she can be.”

He worded that a bit harsh, but she knew what he meant. If she were to die, she would want that her fellow District 4 Member would win, so her family could have another good year.

Julia tried to think of something to say, but Spinneret was faster. “You were the mentor of my brother, weren’t you?” She said that directly to Julia. There was an uncomfortable silence. “I hope you didn’t treat him like you’re treating me, because in that case I can prepare myself for a really painful death.”

She didn’t wait for anyone to say anything and left for her room. She acted upset, but she wasn’t. She was only aiming for her mentors to snap out of that state they were in. Just because she was tiny and cute didn’t mean they were allowed to ignore her.

It wasn’t long until Rick came to get her. He knocked and told her that they were about to watch the recap of the opening ceremony. Spinneret jumped off her bed and he asked her quietly if she was alright. He knew how upset her whole family was when James died.

“I’m fine.  I was just pretending to be upset.” When he raised an eyebrow, she had do force herself not to look annoyed. “Don’t make me roll my eyes, moving them too much still hurts! What did they do when I left?”

He chuckled. “They looked terribly ashamed and now they promised all of us to pay more attention to you as well.”

“Good, that’s all I wanted.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Why aren’t you scared?” That question must have been on his mind since they were on the stage and she squeezed his had to cheer him up.

“I don’t know” That answer was honest.

They sat down on a sofa. She took the spot between Ebony and Rick. They were her favorite people in this room and neither Eric nor Julia dared to look her in the eyes. The stylists were alright, she supposed. She didn’t know them enough yet.

The opening ceremony was as she expected. District 1 and 2 looked beautiful as always. She wasn’t sure if the outfits of District 3 were supposed to be pretty, because she thought they looked really lame. District 4 came out with their white horses, and now she understood what the others meant. Rick looked dangerous and fearless from the angle the camera shot it. Spinneret was the only one who realized how stiff he was because she was right next to him. And then there she was, hands high in the air, waving, smiling. The announcers made a remark that she was surely the most endearing tribute they had in a long while. The Capitol loved her, and for now that was all that mattered.

Usually the Districts 1, 2 and 4 had the nicest outfits and most talented stylists. This time was no different. She didn’t quite understand who thought it would be a good idea to put District 7 in leaf costumes. The girl, Helen, still got the attention she deserved with her strong body, no matter the ridiculous costume. When it came to District 12, she always felt a bit bad. They got the worst costumes and they almost never won.  Now she was glad that they almost never stood a chance, it meant less competition.

The parade ended and she yawned. Julia looked at her. “Tomorrow will be a long day, you should go to bed,” she said. Spinneret couldn’t agree more, so she waved ‘Good night’ to everyone and disappeared in her room, which was already cleaned up. When she checked the bathroom, the floor was clean of rainbow bubbles as well.

Spinneret brushed her teeth with all available tooth pastes at once and decided that it tasted awful. When she fell into her bed, she didn’t even bother changing into a pajama.

 

In the morning she searched for her glasses in vain and had to fight the urge to cause another natural disaster in the bathroom. So she just changed into the clothes that she assumed would be her training outfit. Why even the training outfit had to be fancy was a mystery to her. It consisted of tight dark blue pants and an equally tight top with a loose fabric covering it. She only understood its purpose when she looked in the mirror. Payon supported her strategy and made her look helpless and harmless, just like he did with the siren costume. He made sure she looked as young as possible, because it was the tributes who she had to assure that she was no danger at all. She loved the leather boots that came with the outfit. They were a bright red and no matter how much she liked them, she hoped the boots for the arena wouldn’t be as flashy. If they were, she’d have a hard time hiding from anyone. But so would everyone else.

She was the first to go to breakfast. One of the servants was standing next to a big table, barred with food. She asked him to get her a hot chocolate. She was hoping to get a small conversation going, but he just nodded and left. She helped herself with scrambled eggs, bread and things she didn’t know the name of. But they were colorful and looked tasty. The servant came back with the desired cup of hot chocolate just as she sat down to eat. She thanked him, but again he said nothing. Right when she wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t talk to her, Eric entered the room. “Don’t bother,” he said. “He’s an Avox, he can’t speak.”

“Why not?” She was confused. Weren’t people who couldn’t talk called mute? Did they invent a fancy new word in the Capitol to be special?

“Avox’ are traitors. Their tongues get cut out.”

Spinneret frowned and stuck out her tongue to make sure hers was still there. That seemed to amuse Eric greatly. He loaded his plate with eggs and bacon and chose the place opposite of her. “Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday. We didn’t mean to make you feel like you had no chance of winning.”

She had her mouth full, so she just shrugged.

“I’ll make sure you’ll have the best chance of winning you can get,” he assured her. Then he leaned over the table and whispered. “Just between you and me, is there a strategy you have in mind?”

Spinneret nodded and gulped her bread down. “I’ll be cute and adorable to win sponsors and lull the other tributes in. When they least expect it, I kill them,” she said shoving eggs in her mouth.

He seemed to be lost in thought. “Yes, that seems to be the best strategy you can go with,” he agreed. “But can you really kill someone?”

“It’s either killing, or getting killed. There is nothing in between.”

He was probably concerned about her attitude.  Just like the day before. Did she have such an effect on other people when she spoke with a calm voice? He leaned back in his chair when Julia came in. It didn’t take long and Rick followed. Julia asked how her eyes were.

She rolled her eyes to test them. “Better, I suppose.”

There were a few minutes of silence while everyone ate their breakfast until Julia finally spoke up.

“So, do you want is to consult you separately?” she asked.

Rick seemed to think about what would be best, but Spinneret was faster.

“No need for that. He couldn’t hurt me, even if he wanted to,” she said while she tried picking up the last bit of egg with her fork.

He turned his head around so fast she was surprised it didn’t fly off. “What do you mean by that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you would risk hurting me and make Leanna hate you forever?”

He blushed.

“Thought so.”

“What about you, Rick? What do you say?” Eric seemed to be more and more irritated by the tiny girl with the scary ability of knowing and manipulating those around her.

He hesitated. “I don’t think I have much to fear from her either,” he decided. “We can do this together.”

“Good, so what are you two good at?” Julia’s eyes darted to Spinneret. She could already guess that Rick was a typical Career Tribute, maybe a little too soft for her tastes, but he was well trained, as always ignoring the fact that training the children beforehand was forbidden. But her? It was difficult to see any great talent in the small girl.

Rick spoke first, mentioning all the skills he had. Reaching from swimming, over climbing to wrestling. He also mentioned the weapons he was able to wield. Spears, tridents, knives and many others.

Then the attention turned to her and she knew that: yes, yesterday she made a great deal out of it to not count her out yet, but next to Rick she would look pathetic, no matter what.

“I’m a really fast swimmer!” she started and it might have impressed some of the other districts, but in a place where the citizens made a living of fishing, it was as special as saying “I can breathe.”

She thought for moment. Why didn’t she think of any usable abilities earlier? “I can tie the best knots. Even snares! To shoo away stray cats mostly.” And she remembered something actually useful, that she learned not too long ago from her brother. “I can throw knives!”

Everyone, even Rick seemed relieved that she could handle at least one weapon. “And don’t forget to mention how fast you can climb trees,” he said. “Haven’t seen anyone disappear behind leafs as fast as she does, when she caused her sisters trouble.”

Spinneret giggled at the thought. He must have liked her sister a lot to even keep track of her own actions. Rick was a really nice guy. His family was poor, but they trained him for the off chance that he had to attend to the Hunger Games since they made him take tesserae. It was unfortunate that only one of them would be allowed to come back. If one of them made it at all. She didn’t want him to die, but she wasn’t eager to give up her life either. One thing was absolutely clear though, she wanted District 4 to win.

Julia sighed. “So, here is what you are going to do. Rick, you’ll do what we generally advice our tributes to do. Befriend the tributes from District 1 and 2. Show off what you can do. Make sure they will let you join their group. That shouldn’t be too hard for you. And keep them distracted from Spinneret.”

Rick nodded.

“Spinneret, the chance that they want you to join is close to zero,” she let her hands comb through her hair. “Just go through the stations alone and pick up skills you don’t have. Whatever you do, don’t show off your actual talents. I don’t know how good you are at throwing knives, but it’s better if they don’t know anything about you.”

That was pretty much what Spinneret intended to do anyway.

Eric spoke up. “When they call you in for the private sessions you’ll do pretty much the same. Rick, show them everything you can do. Spinneret, you don’t.”

“But I need sponsors!” she protested.

“You don’t get sponsors through your skill, darling,” Julia explained. “You get them because you make them like you.”

“That  _is_  a skill.” Spinneret pouted jokingly. “Can I at least show off some knots? I don’t want to embarrass myself in there.”

Neither Eric nor Julia seemed to have a problem with that.

They also told them that Spinneret was the first non-Career tribute they ever mentored. It had been a long time since any tribute in District 4 was a non-Career. Even Julia was one. She was the fastest sprinter with the best reflexes and while there was barely any water in her desert like arena, she managed to hunt down several animals that she traded for weapons. As it turned out she was as good at hunting humans as she was at hunting animals. When she won, Spinneret was only three, but often enough they showed snippets of the old games. Victors were celebrities after all, and they had to be known for what they did in the arenas.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Spinneret lives through training and the interview.

Ebony awaited them at the elevator. It was almost ten. She chattered away about how popular they were after the parade and that even very important someone’s in the Capitol showed great interest in them. Spinneret grabbed her hand wordlessly as they stepped into the elevator. As she raised an eyebrow she explained. “I’m harmless and helpless. Better show them as often as possible.”

It was obvious that Ebony wasn’t used to this strategy either. But at least she didn’t mind at all.

When they arrived in the Training Area the Careers and some others were already gathered. Before Ebony left them, she made sure to crouch down to Spinneret and straighten her top. This strategy was perfect for the two of them. A few of the Careers laughed at her, but that didn’t bother her, it was exactly as planned.

Someone pinned her district number on her back and she wondered what for, but maybe the Gamemakers would show up.

At ten everyone had arrived and a bald woman with dark skin approached them. She reminded Spinneret a little bit of President English. Only that she was good looking and female. She introduced herself as Callie the head trainer and seemed very shy. Nevertheless she listed the stations in a matter-of-fact voice and Spinneret was sure Callie practiced that little speech a lot, because that didn’t seem shy at all, but wondered how someone like her could be a head trainer. She also warned them that they were not allowed to attack each other before the Hunger Games started and that the trainers at the stations would be more than happy to help them practice.

Immediately everyone swarmed out to practice with weapons and Spinneret was left alone. She glanced around to see which stations were free. Since there was nobody who claimed the station about poisonous plants, insects and animals in general, she decided to start there. She flipped through images on a screen while the trainer explained to her what the most prominent features of the pictured creatures and plants were. When he quizzed her about it, not even an hour later he was surprised to see that the little girl with no chance of winning was a sponge for knowledge.

She tried her luck on other stations. Fire making, edible plants, she had no fun with the camouflage trainer, who seemed generally frustrated with her. She didn’t want to cover her hair in mud or anything really, didn’t want to hear that blonde hair is easy to spot, didn’t want to cover her face in colors either, but Spinneret had an excuse for that last point, her eyes still had to heal and she didn’t want to risk anything. He told her to waste some other trainer’s time, so she did.

At the knot-tying spot she made sure nobody was paying attention to her and showed the trainer that she knew how to make nets, several knots and earned her approval. Then she showed her some useful other knots they didn’t use in her district and taught her how to make proper snares, because those she knew were far from good, as her trainer informed her.

Every once in a while she glanced over to the others, saw them throwing spears, knives (pleased she saw that nobody was particularly good at it), swing swords and shot arrows (again nobody was very good at it and they left the bow alone very soon). From what she could see very few of her opponents had interest in long distance weapons and was talented with them. But every single one knew how to wield a knife or sword.

In the end her curiosity about swords, the weapons of pirates, won. As long as she stayed clear of throwing knives it should be alright. And some of the others started to pay attention to the surviving stations as well, so there were less people using the weapons. Without any instructions she lifted up one of the big swords with both hands. It was way too heavy to swing it around, so she made it her mission to put it back to where she took it from. She was surprised when the boy from District 9, Dustin was his name, took the sword from her and put it back without much effort. He looked like he wanted to say something to her, but then shook his head and changed the station.

Spinneret made big eyes at the trainer, and he gave her a light short sword to practice the movements and she had the feeling that she was a quick learner, which was good for her but bad for her strategy. She couldn’t risk getting good at handling a weapon. At least she couldn’t be seen like this. So she fake-tripped while swinging the sword and gave up the station at once. Her trainer looked disappointed that she didn’t want to try again, but she promised she’d come back later. She was certain that she could pick up tips from the trainer and absorb them, while she’d just clumsily imitate the motions. Maybe the trainer would even understand her strategy. She couldn’t be the first to work like that. But she didn’t remember anyone winning with like this.

As she looked up again she saw the Gamemakers watching them from above. They wore ugly robes, they probably thought were fancy. They took notes on what the tributes did and she noticed that they even showed interest in her. That could only mean that there were actually sponsors interested in her, or the Gamemakers saw that she was actually too good at learning to trip like that and drop the sword. No matter what, she had to be careful. She needed a low score. No matter how much she longed for eight points, she needed five at most. Maybe even four. She could just multiply it and then it was eight. Now she was certain she wanted a four.

At lunch all twenty-four tributes shared one room to eat together. The tributes from District 1 and 2 as well as Rick shared one table, as she suspected. She looked around to see where she could sit alone. She had to look scared so she couldn’t just march up to the Careers and chat with them. No, they had to ignore her.

As she glanced around, she saw something unusual. The girl from 7 and the boy from 9, the one who helped her with the sword, were sitting together. She never saw that tributes from different districts other than the Careers made friends before the games started. Or maybe they just didn’t show it for some reason. But those two seemed friendly towards each other. Here she had a big problem. Should she join them? She could make friends with them. Dustin tried talking to her before. And Helen seemed too nice to send her away. But why would she befriend them? What for? For protection? It seemed like a bad idea. Instead she sat down near them, so she could hear what they were talking about. With luck she could use it in the arena.

As it turned out, the two of them were talking about their families. Mostly boring details. She lost her mother when she was little. She helped her father with his work. And now she’s all strong and broad shouldered. He had both of his parents and a little sister at the age of eleven. That part was interesting to Spinneret. It might give her some safety if she needed it in the arena. And she was sure she could use every bit of safety she could get her hands on.

The other tributes were spread across the room, sitting for themselves and being quiet. Only the Careers were noisy. And all of them put on an impressive arrogance. Even Rick, but she was sure that was mostly because their mentors urged him to befriend those people. And a tiny bit because he was only human and humans liked support. And she mustn’t have any support from the others.

After lunch everyone returned to the stations and somehow Spinneret had to learn sword fighting without learning sword fighting. She rejoined the trainer and tried to telepathically tell him that she couldn’t show the other tributes that she was getting good at it. It only resulted in staring at the confused trainer for minutes until her eyes hurt. Then the Career girls returned to the station and showed off what they learned not too long ago, mocking Spinneret for the little stunt she pulled earlier. All she had to do was looking embarrassed and watching the girls’ movements. Then she stormed off to the archery class. To her great disappointment it was much harder to hold a bow and shoot an arrow than she thought. It always looked so easy on television. The hard truth was that she had a hard time pulling the string. Aiming was almost impossible but she hit some targets after over an hour of training. She could already tell that spear throwing wasn’t for her and her arms already hurt enough from archery training.

In the evening Rick and Spinneret returned to the District 4 apartment and their mentors. They asked them about the training and gave them tips for the next day. For Spinneret it was mostly “Don’t”.

Don’t train too much on the weapons. Don’t let the others know that you can set snares. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

 

The next day was complicated for her. She had to learn as much as possible, but she had to pretend that she didn’t know anything. If the trainers didn’t see progress, they didn’t teach anything new. At least some of them caught that she was always looking to the others to make sure nobody saw her, and after that she showed what she could do. They made no comment about it and showed her more advanced things to practice. That way she at least got new knowledge from the survival stations. She learned too fast for her own good, skipped between the classes. She also learned a great deal about finding shelter and how to make fire without matches. She took a while to master the skill, but in the end it worked. At least to some degree. In the end she went to the fishing station. Nobody would be suspicious of anything she’d do there. She was from District 4 after all. She made fishhooks, a few nets and chatted with the trainer about our favorite fish to catch and which was hardest to get. Then he was quiet for a moment. She wondered if she had said anything that might have offended him, but he crouched down beside her, pretending to help her with a net, that was actually perfectly fine. “I’m sorry about your brother,” he whispered.

She raised an eyebrow. So the Capitol wasn’t as oblivious to her situation as it pretended to be.

“It’s good to see you aren’t following his footsteps.” He subtly nodded in the general direction for the Careers.

Yes, one of the reasons why she didn’t even  _want_  to join the Career tributes was the betrayal her brother had to go through. He obviously befriended them, but soon the District 1 girl turned on him and left him to bleed to death. Later she was killed by the District 6 boy who won those games. His name was Penuel Captor. That was the first time she saw her district genuinely worship a victor from another district. He killed both murderers of the District 4 tributes that year.

She thought for a minute. “Do you think I stand a chance against any of them?”

He looked back at the other tributes, focusing on the loudest bunch. “Well, you _are_  smarter than them.”

She laughed and finished another hook. “I wish it was just about who can use their brain.”

He got up again and grabbed the net as he saw someone else approaching. “You should work on your knots,” he said to her in a strict voice and she knew her little time-out was over. So she reacted as the helpless girl, blushed embarrassed and nodded.

The approaching tribute turned out to be Beth, the girl from District 3. Last time she saw her, she was practicing archery. She didn’t even look like her arms hurt or like she was out of breath, which was weird because Beth was so skinny. Spinneret was a bit envious and wondered if she’d have fewer problems, if she was taller too.

As her trainer commanded she got up to move stations again, but then Beth actually talked to her.

“Why are you, of all people, at the fishing station, District 4?” she said.

Spinneret was already annoyed. She had a name, and if she had the decency to remember her name she should get her entitled brain to learn hers too. “Spinneret.”

“What?”

“That’s my name,” she said shyly, looking to the ground so she wouldn’t blow her harmless girl cover. “Spinneret.”

“Fine, whatever. Why are you here Spinneret?” Beth didn’t seem to want any friends in the arena.

“I wanted to see if I can improve my skills.”

“And can you?” Spinneret could practically taste the hostility, and she didn’t understand why that girl so openly acted like this. Even more so she wondered what she did to deserve it. Or if Beth just went around and shoved her poor people skills in everyone’s faces.

Her trainer interrupted. “Oh yes, she can. Her knots are average at best. A disgrace for her district, to be honest. And with that he threw the perfectly fine net into a bin so Beth couldn’t question the statement. He nodded Spinneret away.

Any admiration she may have had for Beth was blown away. All she could think of was that there was a new person she had to stay aware of.

At the end of the day she told her team about the encounter. Rick had no such meeting with Beth. He didn’t even recall seeing her all that much and told her to pay Beth no mind. Their mentors disagreed. Spinneret was right to be careful and they should both stay alert.

 

The third day of training was dull. They were all called to their private session with the Gamemakers. One after another. First the boy from District 1, then the girl, followed by District 2 and so on. Everyone had 15 minutes to show what they could do. She still had to show that she couldn’t do anything. She still aimed for a four. But whatever she did, after Rick’s performance she’d look weak anyway. This time she was glad for that.

While she was sitting there, nervously waiting to be called in, she imagined what Miles would do in there to impress the Gamemakers. Maybe he would show his spear throwing skills, or ask for a piece of wood that he would carve into an impressive weapon in less than ten minutes. It calmed her down to think of that.

When it was her turn, she walked in and heard the adoring noises the Gamemakers made. She went straight to a little wall with ties and strings of all colors. She took some of them, made her way to the middle of the room and held up what was in her hands for her audience to see. In no time she showed them how fast she was at making even the most complicated knots. By the looks of it, they tried their best not to look suspicious.

‘They know,’ she thought. ‘They talked to the trainers. They know that I can do more than that.’ The thought of that scared her so much she couldn’t concentrate on the net she was making. They mustn’t give her a high score. If she got a higher score than five she would be dead in no time. Why did she even let on that she was very much capable of learning how to deal with weapons, fire, and everything at all? She couldn’t even see anything in front of her anymore, got dizzy and only snapped out of her state when the Gamemakers dismissed her. She got up at once and looked at the net in her hands. It was the weirdest thing she ever produced. First she had done a very simple net. But when she stopped focusing she had started making it more complicated. It was her favorite kind of fishing net. Even her brother agreed whenever she said it looked like a spider web. She must have made it out of some kind of reflex. Terrified she dropped a curtsy and ran out of the room.

She shoved the net into the hands of a mute – Avox, she reminded herself – and took the elevator. She pressed the number four and felt her head spinning. Everything was messed up thanks to the stupid training!

She was barely in the room when Julia and Eric started talking to her but she didn’t want to talk.

“My head hurts,” was all she needed to say and Eric carried her right away so someone could give her medical treatment. Of course her team was worried about her eyes. They insisted on the surgery. It turned out the eyes weren’t the problem. She was just nervous. The doctor gave her some juice that tasted terrible but let her head stop spinning. She could think clear again. When Eric took her back to the fourth floor he said “I didn’t know anything could make you nervous. Was the private session that bad?”

She told them about it when they were sitting together at the table munching away food, but they assured her that this wasn’t bad at all. Gamemakers tried not to interfere when they smelled a strategy, they said. Rick talked about his session and how well it went. He wielded every weapon in there for a short time until he was told to leave.

It was still a few hours until they would announce the scores, so Spinneret left to soak in the bathtub. Here she was safe. No harm could come to her. No high scores, no hostile Beth, no surgeons and nobody else either.

It almost felt like home where she trained with Miles behind their parents’ backs.

At first her mother and father raised all their children as Career Tributes. They could afford it. James showed most potential of course. He was the oldest and strongest. When he volunteered everyone cheered for him, except for her. Spinneret somehow knew he would never come back and she turned out to be right. When they saw him die on the screen and days later received his coffin, her parents urged them to stop training at once. Nobody was to volunteer ever again.

Still Miles wanted to. She thought he was strong and smart enough. He had a good chance of winning. Months ago he kept talking weird things in his dreams. They shared a room, that’s how she knew. When he woke up she kept bugging him until he revealed her plan to her. She gave him her dice and he asked her to train with him. She had to move targets with strings throw targets into the air and help him, until she got so bored that he gave her the throwing knives. She was good. Better than him even, but she paid it no mind. She was proud to be faster at swimming than him though. He urged her to train her knife throwing skills whenever they had time to train. Not for her to get better, but for him to learn from her. She was a natural, and with practice she would be terrifying one day, he told her. How she wished that Miles would be here now. That he’d take her home so the stupid scores didn’t have to bother her anymore.

But they did. Hours later, after dinner she had to sit with the others to wait for the scores.

They showed a picture of the tribute and then a number appeared. Again it was in the same order than earlier that day. District 1, boy, girl. Of course the Careers from 1 and 2 got scores from nine to ten. What worried her was that Beth, the girl from the electronics District managed to score a nine as well. Suddenly that girl seemed even more dangerous to her than she was before. The only thing that kept her mind from racing again was the juice she was drinking earlier. Ricks face appeared and he scored an unbelievable twelve. Everyone cheered for him and he could barely believe what he saw. They all went quiet when Spinnerets face was shown. She held her breath. A four. They gave her a four. She jumped off the sofa and let out a joyful scream. She didn’t mess up! Her cover wasn’t blown! The others gave her that moment of triumph and then asked her to sit down again.

The remaining tributes scored mostly five to seven points. Spinneret was a bit disappointed in Dustin and Helen. She was sure they could have pulled more than the seven they got.

Satisfied with her score she celebrated with the stylists, Ebony, Eric and Julia and Rick of course.

Ebony used the opportunity to explain the schedule for the next day. They would prepare themselves for the interviews. Ebony wanted to teach them body language and basically a bit of acting. Spinneret knew she’d be bored in no time. She was good at acting already. Rick needed help with that though. And Eric and Julia would practice their strategies for the stage.  The day would be rather boring to her.

When she went to bed, she had a hard time finding sleep. Earlier the relief about her low score had distracted her, but now there was no distraction. How was Beth able to score a nine? Spinneret thought about what she saw. Was she terrifyingly good at any station? Not that she remembered. What if she stayed clear of a station she was great at too? Rick mentioned that he hardly saw her, but he trained at every weapon station. That was no help at all. Whatever she did, she must have impressed the game makers. She only remembered seeing her at the archery class. So at least she wouldn’t shoot her from far away.

In the end Spinneret found sleep. Not as much as she wanted to, but it was a start. The knocking on her door made it very clear that she overslept. ‘What’s it matter,’ she thought to herself. ‘I don’t need much preparing anyway.’

And she was right. While Ebony was struggling to get Rick to walk, talk and look arrogant enough to pass as a proper Career, Spinneret already perfected the art of the bouncy walking and bubbly talking. She knew what the audience wanted, and she could deliver. In the end Rick managed to get behind the secret of arrogant acting and they were allowed to move on to their mentors. Julia practiced with Spinneret while Eric patiently explained Rick what he had to do.

Julia and Spinneret ended up finishing so early that they went to the sitting room to play card games with Ebony. Julia started showing card tricks and especially Ebony asked for more and more. A few hours later Rick and Eric joined them seeming satisfied. So the whole day paid off for Rick. They spent the rest of the evening eating, laughing and watching specials about the victors and how they spent their days in the Capitol so far.

Durius Ampora shoved his face in the camera whenever possible. Ebony openly wondered why the Capitol didn’t remove his scars but Eric explained that the scars were his trademark. Spinneret remembered the first day at the Cornucopia last year. His face got cut twice and the boy was given the nickname Dualscar by the commentators. Since the name burned itself into everyone’s memories they didn’t dare to remove the most prominent scars. Now he was allowed to wear them with pride, and that he did.

 

On the next day Spinneret belonged to Payon and the prep team. Celia and the others went nuts when they heard they were allowed to use make-up on her and over the hours they made her skin shimmer like the pearls she found sometimes did. Everything shimmered in the end. Her nails, her hair, the pearls that decorated her hair with the bits of turquoise net in between. Her lips and even her eyelashes were painted blue.

When Payon entered the room she asked “And what am I this time?”

He chuckled and revealed her white dress, decorated very similar to her hair. “Still the cute little siren you always were.”

The dress was heavier than the one at the opening ceremony thanks to the longer fabric and the pearls. Unlike the first dress she had, this one wasn’t shapeless. To make sure she would still fit with Rick’s Poseidon theme, he made her dress look like loose fabric that happened to look like a dress. This time was completely different and Spinneret wondered how he managed it that the dresses were still similar enough. She wore silver bracelets, the shoes were flat, she had to be the little girl after all. She was sure Payon would reveal the story behind her outfits as soon as they were in the arena and they interviewed the stylists. If she was lucky that could win her sponsors.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

She had to laugh. “I am so not nervous about the interview.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Why? Should I be?”

That made him smile. “No, of course not. The people love you!”

She grinned. “Rightfully so!”

They met up with the others on their way to the elevator. Eric, Julia and Ebony would all sit together with the other mentors but wanted to use this last chance to give them important tips. Rick looked stunning in his outfit. He was wearing something that looked close to a suit, only what should be a jacket ended in what reminded very much of a drape. She complimented Dileria for her great work. As Dileria saw her, her prep team had to keep her from hugging Spinneret. It would mess up her whole outfit. Spinneret found it funny how enthusiastic that woman was.

In the elevator Eric addressed her. “Don’t forget, they need to love you,” and to Rick he said. “And you need to reassure them that you are worth your twelve points. Got it?”

“Got it,” they said at the same time before they walked out the door. Ebony wished them luck and walked away to take her seat, while Julia led them to their spots. The tributes would all line up for the show. They would sit on the stage while the interviewer Mr. Scratch – he wanted everyone to call him Doctor Scratch – talked to every single one for three minutes. She didn’t understand why Julia explained it to them. Everyone knew how it went. But patiently they listened to what she had to say until Eric dragged her away with him.

The music started and the twenty-four tributes paraded to the stage. The boy in front of her was annoyingly slow, but then she saw that Beth was walking in front of him and if she had to walk behind her, she’d walk slowly too. Finally they reached their places and Spinneret was the only one who had problems climbing onto her seat. If she was annoyed before, she was furious now. Why didn’t the Capitol people think?! They gave her a seat that only the older – so all other – tributes could sit on without problems. But she didn’t let anything on. The crowd adored her little stunt.

Scratch, a man with scary white skin and a flashy green blouse and suspenders claimed the stage. Like Ebony he thought white was his color. Unlike Ebony he was dead wrong. He looked like the stuff of nightmares and the way he talked always made the tributes seem stupid. Spinneret couldn’t put into words why, but she couldn’t stand Scratch and she hoped that her three minutes would be over as fast as possible.

He introduced himself as the host of this show, as if someone in Panem didn’t know. She knew her family would be watching this, so she had to make them see that she was doing fine. But the score she got two days ago probably spoke of the opposite. Only Miles knew that she was training and she probably had a strategy.

The crowd cheered for Scratch and he made his share of jokes before asking the tributes to come and sit with him. The seat next to him wasn’t lower than hers, she realized. Quickly she glanced around to see how the others were doing, when she saw that the Careers glared past her and at Rick. She wasn’t sure if she just imagined that, but her feeling told her that he was in trouble. Even more than Hunger Games trouble. She couldn’t talk to him now, so she waited for the interviews, thinking she might be able to use any information given there.

Diamond, Crownade, Ivory and Windrew all didn’t say anything important. Blah blah, they would win. Blah winning. More blah.

When Beth got up and claimed the seat she focused completely on the interview. But as it turned out her people skills were very poor. So maybe what happened at the training really didn’t mean anything. Scratch tried for three minutes to make her say something useful, but for once someone managed to make themselves look stupid without Scratch’s help. The boy from three seemed nice enough. A charming guy. Joked around with Scratch but he didn’t say anything about Beth either. ‘Of course he didn’t, but you never know’, Spinneret thought to herself. ‘Looking stupid on the stage might be her strategy’. But if she was honest she couldn’t think of a strategy with the whole purpose to not get sponsors.

And then it was her turn, she climbed down her chair and bobbingly walked over to Scratch, who reached out for her hand before she was even close to him. She held out her hand for him and he did something she never saw him do. Not in the interviews before, nor in all those years before. He kissed her hand while she waved to the citizens of the Capitol. The reaction of the audience was immediate: they loved it. Spinneret had to use all her self-control so she wouldn’t jerk her hand away and vomit all over the stage. Every tiny bit of disgust she had ever felt at some point in her life suddenly concentrated itself in Mr. Scratch himself as she led her to the seat. She could feel that he favored her over all those other tributes, he’d make sure that she would have the best interview. He showed that very openly even, but she wasn’t sure if everyone noticed it. The people were cheering so loud that Scratch’s compliments for her lovely outfit weren’t even audible. Suddenly some things made sense to her. He must have been the ‘someone in the Capitol’, Ebony was talking about. The important person. And even more sense made the little remark of Payon earlier. He was worried about her, not because of the interview but the interviewer. In the back of her head she remembered that there was a word for people like him. Her parents once mentioned it, but she couldn’t recall exactly how adults, who liked little boys and girls, were called again. All she knew was that he was Disgust himself to her. And Disgust was talking to her.

With all that whirling around in her head she almost missed it. But it was just the first question he asked everyone anyway.

“How do you like the Capitol, Spinneret?” he asked.

She had practiced this with Julia. “I love it!” she said enthusiastically and used her arms to paint an imaginary half circle in the air around her. “The bathtubs are huge! I thought I’d get lost!”

He laughed and so did the audience. “I know exactly what you mean,” he assured her. “So tell me, where did your glasses go?”

She didn’t think anyone would even remember that she wore glasses at the reaping, but apparently she was wrong. “I got surgery, so I wouldn’t have a disadvantage at the games,” she explained. “First I was scared, but I didn’t feel a thing!”

He grabbed her shoulder, and again she had to fight the urge to slap his hand away. “I’m so glad to hear that,” he said and then looked at the crowd. “Aren’t you?” and they nodded and yelled how they were glad. Surgery obviously wasn’t a special thing here, so they had the difficult job to imagine what it would be like for a little girl from the Districts. “Spinneret sure is an unusual name. Would you like to explain the story behind that?” Finally he took his hand away from her.

“Oh, I’d love to! I’m the youngest of eight children,” she gave Scratch a moment to look surprised and make a comment about how her parents were busy people. The audience cheered. “And since eight is a very special number they came up with a special name for me. Relating to spiders!”

“Spiders, that’s nothing to compare a girl to, is it?”

“I like spiders, they aren’t scary if you just start learning about them.”

“Congratulations, my dear Spinneret, you certainly act more mature than I do,” he realized that there wasn’t much time left, so he didn’t bother waiting for the audience’s reaction. It went nuts anyway. “You mentioned your family.” She knew what he was going to bring up. “Your brother volunteered six years ago, didn’t he?”

Spinneret nodded, looking to the ground. “We miss him at home.”

Silence.

“Aren’t you scared that the same might happen to you?” he asked.

“I am very scared, but I also have hope that I can finish what he started and make sure he didn’t die in vain.” Did the audience love her? She looked up and everyone stared at her. “I’m the eighths child and eight is my lucky number after all!”

The buzzer went off, her three minutes were over. “I’m sure it is!” He offered his hand to her again to hold up her arm. “Spinneret Serket, ladies and gentlemen. Tribute from District 4!” The masses cheered, applauded and shouted her name and she went back to climbing onto her seat while she wondered if he enjoyed watching little boys and girls struggling with those too big chairs.

Now that there was a bit of distance between them, her mind stopped focusing on just hating the man who interviewed her and wondered if her face was showing what she thought when he questioned her. But by the way the audience reacted, she supposed she did well.

He called Rick and they had a nice chat about how he liked the Capitol and his amazing twelve points.

The other tributes had to live with the fact that Scratch had his own victor already, the interviews were dull. Boring. They paraded their way off the stage and used the elevators to their flats and Spinneret refused to talk. When they ate dinner everyone was talking about how unforgettable the interviews were, how lovely Spinneret looked, how many sponsors they would have won et cetera.

They didn’t even notice that she fell silent. Nobody but Payon, who sat right next to her. They shared a glance. She wanted to ask him a question, but didn’t even want to hear the answer. He asked her about the outfit instead. How she liked it. Idle chit-chat.

Later they moved to the sitting room so they could watch the interviews on television. As she saw the faces of the Career tributes, she forced herself to watch their behavior, and yes she was right, they passively acted hostile towards Rick. She had to warn him, to make sure that he didn’t team up with them. And then there was her interview. She was glad to see that her iron actress-mask never even wavered. Her interview made the greatest impression of course. Ebony, Julia and Eric congratulated them and then wished them luck. They had to move to the Games Headquarters.

Everyone quickly hugged and then they left. The stylists would still be there the next day, but they also left the flat. Rick and Spinneret were left alone. Now it suddenly hit her. In less than twenty-four hours they could be dead.

“Rick,” she said without even looking up.

He was startled by the tone of her voice. The last days she spent chatting in a light tone, but now that was over. “What is it?” he asked.

“Don’t team up with them.” Finally she decided to face him.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Didn’t you see how they looked at you? Ever since you got the twelve they are seeing you as a threat!”

“Are you jealous now?” He wasn’t convinced.

“I’m not jealous!” she yelled. “Don’t be stupid! They will kill you just like they killed James!”

He sighed and moved to pat her back. “I know you are upset about all this and it remi-“

“This isn’t about James, it’s about you! They’ll kill you as soon as you turn your back! They are four, you are one! You don’t even stand a chance against them!” Now her voice took on a pleading tone. “Don’t join them,  _please_!”

Rick was obviously irritated. It was his strategy to team up with those people. He already befriended them. “And what do you suggest I do in the arena?”

She wondered just how stupid he could be. It was so obvious. “Team up with me!”

Silence.

“No, I mean it. Team up with me! We’ll wait until most of them are dead and then I’ll leave so you don’t have to kill me and then we’ll see who survives! District 4 has to win”, she urged him.

Rick sat down and thought for what felt like half an hour to her. But she was impatient, and she knew that impatient people always thought that too much time had passed.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “Tomorrow at the Cornucopia I’ll run, get supplies for us and then we make sure we get as much distance between us and them as we can.”

Spinneret was surprised he even came up with something. “Thank you so much!” Even though she had thought all this was just about making sure Rick was safe, she realized that she also needed a protector in the arena. Of course that would be him. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to make it without someone by her side. “You can count on me!” And without saying anything else, she ran into her room to scrub herself Scratch-free. A shimmering skin wouldn’t help her in the arena anyway.  First she considered sleeping in the bathtub, but she’d just get a cold and she couldn’t afford that right now.

Sleeping the night before the Games started was a fight for itself.


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hunger Games begin and people die.

Spinneret was rubbing her left arm where a woman had just inserted a tracker. When she said that she was glad she wouldn’t get lost now in a very sarcastic tone, Payon laughed.

He made her eat breakfast and drink water and for that she was glad. She didn’t know when would be the next time she’d face a nice meal. Maybe it would be never, because she could be dead in less than an hour.

They were on the way to the arena. Neither of them knew what it looked like. It would be used this one time and end up as a tourist attraction for the Capitol, so they could re-enact the most brutal murders.

She looked out the window. Everything was fields and forests. She hoped there would be a lake in the arena. She hoped she could swim one last time. She hoped that she could swim eight last times. She hoped that she could swim while all the other tributes killed each other and left her alone.

Suddenly she felt sick and turned away from the window to count the folds on Payon’s shirt. He tried his best to calm her down in his own way, by putting her hair in a ponytail. He wasn’t as bad as she thought stylists would be. He might seem a little stupid and shallow at times, but he was a good person and deeply cared for her. He always knew he’d get the little girl who had no chance of winning, but he still tried to make her look her best. After what seemed like an eternity to her, she broke the silence.

“Do you think I can win?”

“Of course I do!” he said immediately, trying to comfort her.

“No, I mean honestly,” she looked him in the eyes. “Do you think I have a chance?”

He sighed. “You do have a chance. I admit, it’s smaller than the chance of others, but it’s there.”

That didn’t help at all. “How would it make you feel if I die in that arena?”

“Awful of course!” He seemed genuine.

“Would you miss me?”

“I would miss you dearly.”

“Do you miss the other tributes too?”

“I don’t miss anyone as much as I would miss you”, he assured her.

“Why?”

“Because you are very dear to me.” Somehow he managed to say that in such a normal voice, so far from his Capitol accent that she had to believe it.

She leaned back in her seat and drank another glass of water.

In the Launch Room they saw the outfit for the arena for the first time. Every tribute had to wear the same. In general they were designed to fit the arena, so she was hoping Payon could give her advice and prepare her for what would come.

The outfit was rather plain. A black top, tawny-green pants with camouflage pattern, a leather belt, leather boots and a very thin jacket. She assumed the belt was for when they lost so much weight that they couldn’t keep their pants on, the thought almost amused her, but then she realized that this was what she had to live through. Or maybe not. She could be dead in half an hour. That was even less amusing.

Suddenly she was so nervous, she wanted to throw up. But she needed the energy later. Probably. If she even lived long enough to use it.

Payon talked about the outfit and what it could mean. He said that neither the days nor nights would be too cold. The top and jacket said as much. The camouflage pattern on the pants suggested trees and bushes. ‘Great,’ she thought. ‘That means I’ll be easy to spot with my hair.’ The boots could mean anything Payon said, but to her it meant she could climb trees and maybe rocks.

She was nervous now, walked up and down in the room and refused to drink anything. She said she’d either puke or piss herself if she drank any more.

Payon called her over. She obeyed, fiddling with her jacket. “Hold out your hand.”

She did as he said and he pressed something in her hand that she knew all too well. “My dice!”

“I told you I’d make sure you could have it. I’m a man of my word.”

She would have probably jumped him to hug him but her legs were too shaky. So all she did was staring at the eight-sided dice and thank him.

And then a friendly sounding female voice pulled her back to reality by asking her to step onto a metal plate that would launch her into the arena. She resisted the impulse to hide behind Payon. He couldn’t protect her from her death. She stuffed the dice into her pocket and with shaky steps she reached the platform, then she turned around looking at her stylist with pleading eyes.

“Make sure you’ll miss me!” she meant to say, but her voice cracked, so Payon had to guess what she wanted to say halfway through.

“Make sure I don’t have to,” he said in return, and then a glass cylinder lowered itself and enclosed her as well as the plate. Payon moved his lips, but she couldn’t hear a sound. She shook her head, showing that she didn’t understand, so he pointed at her, stood up straight and puffed out his chest.

She mimicked him while making something between a serious and a desperate expression.

Then the plate began to rise and she could feel her heartbeat getting faster and faster.

‘Maybe I’ll die from shock,’ she thought and then she was pushed into the arena.

There was no escape now.

 

Almost immediately the commentator of the Hunger Games, a man called Jack Noir – a man with serious anger management issues as far as she could tell – welcomed them through the speakers.

Now she had sixty seconds, no more, no less, to scan her surroundings.

All she could do was thinking ‘Please let it be a painless death’ as she looked around. It seemed like a normal place. Only that it wouldn’t be. Right in front of her was the Cornucopia where the bloodbath would take place in a minute from now. There was no food as far as she could tell, and immediately she tried to press her glasses in place to make sure. Only that she didn’t have them anymore, so she had to trust her eyes. That was odd, but it was the  _Hunger_ Games after all. Again she thought of pantsless children hopping through the arena. That at least put a little smile on her face. Smiling was always good for the camera. There were a bunch of backpacks right at the Cornucopia. Rick was maybe twenty meters away from her, they shared a quick glance. ‘Right,’ she thought. ‘The Cornucopia is his job. I’ll plan the escape route.’

There were still thirty-five seconds left and for once she was glad about her racing mind. Time went by slower for her.

To her right and her back there was a forest and she could see a – a mountain? A cliff? Anyway it was far away and they would take at least one or two days to reach it.

To her left she could see fields. And behind the cornucopia, maybe two to three kilometres away, there seemed to be a river! She was excited but she could already forget it. There were no places to hide. Behind the river was a forest, but they couldn’t even reach the river. Spinneret was pretty confident though, that the river would meet up with the mountain somehow. So the plan was obviously to run into the forest for cover and then make their way up to the mountain. While Rick would get supplies, she’d jog over to where the distance to the forest is smallest and then the games would start for them.

And there it was. The gong went off and the tributes started running. Fastest of all: the Career tributes of course. She started running to the spot she thought was strategically best, scanning the ground for usable things in reach, but there was nothing. She thought that was weird. Usually they at least put some food – bread or crackers or anything, really – for the weaker tributes to grab. Watching children starve was considered boring. They wanted fights and more importantly blood.

Over at the Cornucopia she saw Rick stuffing something into a backpack. Then he grabbed two of the backpacks prepared for the tributes, the one he just used to put something in and another one, then he reached for a sword and turned around blindly running away from the Cornucopia. He spotted her and changed his direction towards her. As he came close enough he tossed her a leather backpack, she caught it and took a moment to fling it on her back.

It took less than a few seconds, but when she looked up, Rick looked odd. He stumbled and had a surprised expression on his face, which was only understandable. He was a twelve in training. A twelve didn’t die two minutes after the gong rang. A twelve didn’t have a spear in his back just as the Hunger Games begun. This made no sense to Rick, and it certainly didn’t make sense to her. They were a team, weren’t they? He was the twelve, she was the four. If you took four from twelve it was eight, and eight was a lucky number. They were both from District 4. They were the team from District 4. If you took four twice you had eight as well. There was no way this was real.

 

The moment felt like an eternity but it probably wasn’t long at all. Rick’s knees hit the ground when she snapped back to her senses. He was still moving somehow! He was still alive! But the look he have her clearly said he wouldn’t be for long. He said something to her, but she couldn’t hear it. It was just like in the Launch Room. Only without the glass. She couldn’t hear anything at all. The bloodbath had begun and she couldn’t hear them. The word Rick was trying to say was easy to figure though. It was “Run.”

So she did. She ran. Luckily her mind was fixed on a destination already. She was heading towards the mountain far, far away. Again the thoughts were racing in her head. Was Rick really dead already? Maybe he could fight off whoever attacked him. Who attacked him? She didn’t know. They all looked the same and in her fear she didn’t even bother to look for the attacker. Was it Beth? No, she really needed to stop being scared of Beth so much. It was probably one of the Career Tributes. They hated Rick anyway. Wanted to make sure he didn’t get all the sponsors probably.

Spinneret stumbled through the woods. She wanted to stop right now, but she knew she couldn’t. They were all out to kill her. Everyone but Rick was. And he couldn’t protect her anymore. What was in her backpack? She couldn’t stop to look. She needed to cover as much distance as possible. That mountain covered in trees was her savior, so she had to reach it as soon as possible. Her backpack was so heavy, she felt like she was carrying her own bodyweight.

After several hours of switching between jogging, walking and at times running, she hid between bushes to take a break. The first few minutes she gathered her breath and listened. Then she held her breath for as long as she could to hear if there were any weird noises. Noises made by animals or her fellow tributes, but there weren’t any. Her arms were shaking as she took off the backpack. No matter how desperately she tried to calm herself, it didn’t work.

‘At least I’m not going to be on the screen as long as they are fighting,’ she told herself and reached for the backpack. Every sight of distraction was welcome, and her dice wouldn’t help her right now. Right when she unzipped it, the cannons started firing. Nine shots.

‘Did they take this long for nine kills?’ Suddenly she worried. Did they leave the tributes to die a slow and painful death? She thought of her brother and hoped that Rick died very soon after she fled the scene. She couldn’t stand the idea of her friend suffering. She didn’t have friends in the arena anymore. Every single one of them was out to kill her.

She forced herself to concentrate on the backpack. She pulled out a sleeping bag. Payon said it wouldn’t be too cold, but she wouldn’t complain about it. A bottle filled with water. She had the urge to drink from it, but she wasn’t going to drink until she really needed to, to keep going. Not until she found water anyway. That bottle partly explained why the backpack was so heavy. There was also a lighter. Not matches, a lighter. She stuffed it into her pockets immediately. If she was going onwards, she needed to hold something in her hands, Leanna once told her that it helped her to keep calm. Worst case scenario was that it didn’t work or she’d set her jacket on fire. Or she died. Maybe all three options. She smirked to herself. If she had said that out loud the audience would have laughed. Or Miles would have. She also found a set of bandages, which she found useful. It wouldn’t be too long until she needed them. And finally she pulled out, what she assumed Rick put in at the Cornucopia. A set of throwing knives. The sight of those knives gave her mixed feelings. He had thought of her enough that he even considered spending time to get her weapons. Time that he might have used otherwise. To survive for example. She thought if it would be wise to cry now. She didn’t know if she had to. She didn’t feel like crying, but maybe it was polite to do so. How could this arena mess with her head so much already? Instead of crying she made a silent promise to Rick that she would use these weapons for good. She put everything but one knife back into the bag carefully and continued the journey. Now the other tributes would be on the move as well. She didn’t know how close they were, so she had to be fast and quiet. There was still hope that some of them would go for the river. She would have, if she could have. The knife she was carrying wasn’t too heavy, still she needed to put it somewhere so her hands were free for whatever she could encounter. There were probably animals out to kill her somewhere. She managed to slide the knife between belt and pants. It wasn’t comfortable, but it worked for her.

Since the other tributes were on the run now, she had to keep up her speed. Everyone had longer legs than her. So again, she ran until she was too exhausted, then she switched between jogging and walking again. As the sun settled itself for the night, she decided that she had to walk. She didn’t want to catch any predators’ attention. With wild animals she still had her problems. Nobody taught her how to hunt them or prepare them for food. Or kill them, but she figured the vital points would be heart and neck. And some other points she didn’t care to know. If she could she’d stick to fish. She put her hands in her pockets to fiddle with the lighter and her dice.

Eventually it got too dark for her and she had to settle for a hideout. Since she didn’t know what kind of animals were creeping about, she figured up in the trees it should be safer for now. She climbed the biggest tree she could find, she had no idea what kind of tree it was, nor did she care. Even though it was getting very dark it was still warm enough for her to sit without taking out the sleeping bag. It worked very well as a pillow, as it turned out. She undid the ponytail and finally understood what the camouflage teacher meant when he said that she would be easy to spot. Her hair was practically glowing in the moonlight. She sighed, hugged her backpack and waited for the death review of the Capitol.

Apparently she slept in while waiting. The anthem played and she jerked up, almost dropping her backpack and sleeping-pillow-bag. Her heart raced and her eyes were wide open. She had a good view on the sky, or screen, or whatever it was. Spinneret was sure it was a screen, now that she thought about it. Maybe outside the arena the sun was still up. She wouldn’t know. Every night the Capitol would use the screen to show the dead tributes. Unfortunately for her was that Rick’s face was shown first. She wondered if he’d still be alive if he didn’t decide to team up with her. Maybe the Careers turned on him this quickly because they saw he had no intention to stay with them. Maybe she was wrong and they liked him and then they felt betrayed. No, they probably would have killed them right away anyway. Next was the girl from District 5, both from District 6, the boy from 7, the girls from 8, 9 and 11, as well as the boy from 12. That meant all the Careers, except for Rick – but she didn’t really count him as a Career Tribute anyway – Beth, Helen and Dustin were alive. And the girl from 12 was still on the run. That was an impressive accomplishment by itself. Maybe she just ran away.

The screen faded out and it looked like a night sky again.

Now that it was this late she actually felt a little cold and made use of the sleeping bag. Now her jacket had to pose as a pillow.

 

The night was the most uncomfortable one she ever had. It was no wonder that judging by the sun – the sun wasn’t there – it must have been around four in the morning when she woke up. She loved sleeping in and she always got scolded for that at home. Maybe she slept in now as well. Maybe four in the morning was too late for the Hunger Games. She doubted it and stuffed her sleeping bag back into her backpack. The knife was still where she put it. She didn’t redo her hair, which probably made her mentors scream in agony. She knew it was impractical to wear her hair open like that, but she disliked ponytails.

Spinneret sighed. Her mentors. They lost their biggest hope for the district. Now that they lost their twelve they must have lost a lot of sponsors and had to work with the amount of people left who actually thought she could win. Scratch crept into her mind and she shoved him right out.

Not even one minute later she was on the move again. She had to reach that damned mountain, and if she was being honest: she finally had the feeling she could do it. She didn’t run, she wasn’t awake enough yet. And she had to be careful; maybe the other tributes were closer than she thought.

As her stomach rumbled she also noticed that she didn’t even have the energy to run. She had seen insects on her way, but she didn’t want to eat them. When she passed a bright green caterpillar on a branch she also made a mental note for herself that they were very likely poisonous.

Instead she found a few herbs and since she was so excited about the knife, she cut them off instead of just ripping them out. Chewing herbs she made her way through the forest until she found herself in front of a rocky wall. It wasn’t exactly high enough to be a cliff, but it would take some climbing to cross it. She’d be exposed to her fellow tributes and that was something she wanted to avoid. And if it wasn’t that, it might have been a trap from the Gamemakers. This was nothing she would put past them. She looked to her left and right and decided to follow the wall to the left. She was lucky. There was actually a way around it. Of course it would take her longer, but she was rather safe than sorry.

At around ten o’clock she dared to touch her water bottle. She knew she had to be careful with it until she found a new source of water, maybe a spring, so she took a few sips and put it away again. The people in the Capitol would now start to rise. Spinneret wondered what her family was doing. Miles, Leanna and Lida would be at school now. Maybe her father would work. About her mother she was a hundred percent sure she’d be in front of the TV crying. Not that she was blaming her, no. But it sure as hell didn’t help her now.

The closer she came to the mountain, the more the mountain looked like a mountain with cliff. Cliffs were good, they often came with water. At least where she lived they did. And the way she thought the river would go yesterday, it would all add up perfectly.

She just thought about a change of direction, as she heard a cannon fire. Twice. Immediately she climbed a tree to see where the hovercraft would pick up the bodies. She waited but nothing happened. She already thought she missed it, but there it appeared. It was far away, but unfortunately the killer or killers were heading in her direction. She assumed the distance was worth around a three-quarter-day’s march, so she had a good head start. Since there were two victims she guessed the Careers were the ones who caused their deaths.

She jumped back down and continued to walk straight up the mountain-cliff. As soon as she was there she could still decide what to do and where to go. As if to reward her for that she found edible berries on her way. ‘These Hunger Games sure could go a lot worse for me,’ she thought, but then she remembered she already lost her ally. Still, she was alive, healthy, had a bottle full of water, food and knives. As soon as she found a place she could stay at she would show the people in the Capitol, actually whole Panem, what she could do. She should practice with her new weapons anyway. It would be fatal, if she wasn’t used to the Capitol knives. Back at home they were much simpler, but in the Capitol and the Games everything had to be really fancy and pretty and deadly.

While walking she took the knife from her belt and observed it more closely. It was decorated with engraved patterns. And at the end of the handle she could see the emblem of the Capitol. At least the handle had a good grip. Somehow leather must have been a great hit this year, seeing as it was used quite frequently in these Hunger Games. Or it was supposed to be a great hit next year. She wasn’t quite sure how those fashion things worked in the Capitol. She would probably never know.

She was very pleased to find a little stream on her way up. Pleased enough to take a break. She emptied her bottle and refilled it with the clear water. Until now this arena was very easy to handle, or she was just very lucky with everything. She was still alive, so she must have been incredibly fortunate. Her fellow tributes weren’t too bad at killing as far as she could tell.

The thought of that made her pack her things again, so she could continue her way to the mountain. Now that she allowed herself to drink, she was full of energy. She missed the rich meals of the Capitol, but berries were great. They were a treat in District 4 so she enjoyed them even more. Late in the evening she actually managed to stand on top of what she thought was a mountain. To her disappointment it was more like a gigantic hill. Lida once explained the difference to her and Spinneret always thought mountains were better. They were bigger and sounded cooler. And were probably more dangerous, so she should be glad for what she had. ‘Not that a hill in the hands of a Gamemaker couldn’t be deadly enough…’ she thought bitterly.

To get a good view of her surroundings, she climbed up a tree at the very top. From the looks of it, the forest cleared up and the hill went down for a bit and stopped just like that. Spinneret hoped for a cliff and the river. She didn’t want to be forced to go back to the little stream she found earlier that day, and there weren’t any fish either. Berries were tasty, but she couldn’t live on them forever. She wanted to reach the cliff before it was dark. It was better to have a good map in her mind, so she could move more freely, and since she was alone she desperately needed as many advantages as possible. Just as she was about to climb down the tree again, she heard another cannon. She froze on her tree and waited. How much closer did the Career pack come? As the Hovercraft arrived she was surprised to see that it was very far away. Even farther than earlier, where the two tributes died. She couldn’t imagine that the Careers would wander around the arena this aimless. The hill couldn’t have been only her goal. Maybe someone else killed whoever the victim was.

Quietly she came down and made her was to the cliff, and she was right. The river was just down there. Jumping would have been dangerous though. There was only a small part of that cliff that was directly connected to the water. If she climbed down on the right, seeing as the walls seemed actually climbable, the river vanished in a forest. And that was something she could work with: a forest with a river.

There was probably a way around the cliff and to the forest, but she didn’t know how much time she had left now. She couldn’t risk losing any more of the time she got from her very good headstart. The Careers had longer legs, they could pass longer distances in less time than she could. And that river with the forest would probably be everyone’s destination sooner or later.

She walked around at the edge of the cliff, looking for a passage she could use. While she wouldn’t have a problem climbing down there, she had to calculate her backpack as well. It was pretty heavy and would reduce her movements. Eventually she found one. T was already getting dark, so she had to hurry. It wasn’t as easy as she would have liked to pretend for the cameras. If there wasn’t a fight or something interesting happened right this moment, it was probably her on the screen. Climbing a cliff was fascinating enough for the Capitol. In the games she saw, there was a lot of climbing. Trees. Mountains. Once there was a boy who was trying to climb up a cliff next to a waterfall, and that revealed why the Capitol liked filming and showing those actions. The boy’s hand slipped and he fell to his death. The audience went nuts. They loved it.

To her own surprise, her luck must have run out. While climbing, she had kicked a stone loose by accident and lost her balance. Her body didn’t even wait for her brain to kick in and formulate a plan. That would have taken too long, since it was still busy thinking she would die right this moment. She grabbed for whatever was in reach and managed to find a stone. Next thing she knew was, that her right body half crashed against the rocks and that there was a sharp pain right over her knee. She made an unhappy noise to keep herself from screaming out of shock. She didn’t even dare looking at her leg for now. If she saw what it was, she’d have more problems climbing down. At least that was what she told herself. The rest of the way down went more smoothly, but it was far way more painful as well.

She forced herself to sit on a tree stump instead of just throwing herself to the ground to cry until someone helped her. It wouldn’t work that way. Now she had to treat her wounds herself. Her hands had little cuts everywhere from when she saved herself from a painful and pathetic death. But that was nothing compared to her leg, where a sharp rock must have cut through her pants and skin right above her knee. It wasn’t very deep, but that didn’t stop it from bleeding and hurting. She sighed. Now she wouldn’t be able to run away as fast as she usually did. But at least she wasn’t dead.

Since she still seemed to be the first to have arrived this little paradise of river and forest, she took the opportunity to sit in the water. Not only did it calm her down, she could also dedicate herself to washing the blood off her pants by lazily sticking it between rocks, while she cleaned the cut and bandaged it. If she didn’t bend her knee too much, the cut should heal fast. Of course her sponsors wouldn’t waste money to send her something to stop the bleeding.  _If_ she had sponsors.

Suddenly the sky turned completely black and the anthem of Panem started to play. Today’s victims were the boy from 3 and both from 10. She tried to remember the tributes, but all she could think of was that the boy from District 3 had a very difficult name. The anthem stopped and the sky returned back to normal.

With her leg injured, she didn’t want to risk climbing a tree. Her only option was to find a safe spot on the ground and make herself comfortable there. A task that turned out to be harder than it sounded. Eventually she dragged herself and everything she owned to a blind spot between bushes and a big rock. There was a rather small possibility that the screen would show her at the moment. As far as she knew they mostly focused on those with the biggest chance of surviving. Or fights, or whatever was interesting. A little girl that scored four points in training and arranged her pants on the ground to dry wasn’t particularly interesting. Spinneret was far too tired to bother using her jacket as a pillow.

 

The next day started with the sound of another cannon. Spinneret was so startled that she didn’t even dare to move, she even asked herself for a moment if it was her cannon, which was stupid as she figured a few seconds later. Thanks to her hideout she couldn’t see where the hovercraft appeared. It could have been anywhere, even very close to her, so she needed to move again. As she wriggled out her sleeping bag she was suddenly reminded of her injury with a very sharp pain. She didn’t even need to take off the bandages to know that the cut started bleeding again. She pulled on her more or less dry pants and put on her boots. Her belongings were not-so-carefully stuffed back into the backpack, except for the one knife on her belt. She didn’t even have the chance to practice yesterday.

On her way deeper into the forest and closer to the river she grabbed a pretty straight stick that was laying on the ground. If there were any fish, she could use that as a spear to catch them. Of course she would need to prepare it first but that wouldn’t be a problem with the knives she had. She was incredibly frustrated with her leg. Usually she was so good at climbing and then such a stupid thing happened. ‘It was almost too cliché to be realistic,’ she thought to herself. “Maybe the Gamemakers did something. To make up for that idiotic stunt they should apologize to her with plenty of food,’ she decided.

She was surprised to see that they did. As she reached the river she saw colorful fish splashing in the water and also that the river was actually a stream. The water was more shallow the deeper she went into the forest. It was like this arena was made for District 4! And maybe District 11 with the berries. She took the time to drink from her bottle and started to whittle the stick into a more or less decent fishing spear. With her injured leg she was slower than usual, but she caught three big fish in no time and had to suppress the urge to scream out in triumph.

As she took a closer look at them, she realized that it wasn’t exactly a triumph. Most would fall for this. Maybe even a lot of District 4 members. Those fish she held were mutations. Designed by the Capitol back in the dark days of the rebellion. Weapons against District 4. They were poisonous. Sometimes they still found their way into her home. That’s how her oldest brother died. They looked almost exactly like edible fish, but they were deadly. They caused the arms and legs to flinch, then the whole body was paralyzed and eventually even the heart stopped. Her parents made them learn every poisonous fish in existence until they could name them in their sleep and point out the tiny differences to their edible twins. Her mother actually woke them, whenever she had a nightmare about her passed son to make sure the same thing would not happen to another child of hers.

Spinneret was sure that she was already freaking out in front of the screen, so she should stop looking at them and get rid of the fish. She tossed them back into the water and watched them fade into the distance. This was troublesome. It would be terrible if she’d lose this amazing source of food. She stuffed her leather boots into her backpack and flung it over her shoulder. Now she had to wade through the shallower parts of the water. Every once in a while she speared another fish, just to toss it back into the water until she found one fish that she knew exactly. It looked perfectly fine and she didn’t know a poisonous twin of it. She wasn’t sure if the Capitol invented a new fish, but this one was too perfect to be deadly. She spent about half an hour turning the fish in her hands but eventually she decided to risk it. Not before rolling her dice of course. It showed an eight, which meant the fish was super-duper safe and she had nothing to fear. Which also meant she could make a fire. She caught a few more of the same fish and turned them over the fire. After spending two days in the arena, this finally felt like home and safety. Of course she was neither home, nor was she safe, but she could pretend for the moment and she had a full belly. After her meal she dragged herself back between bushes to hide from the tributes and also to wait if the dice was wrong and she’d die now. She didn’t. In fact she fell asleep instead and only woke up as she heard a panting noise.


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you're tiny and weak you have to be creative.

She immediately reached for her knife. She was in a blind spot between bushes, she knew who or whatever it was couldn’t see her, but if it was a mutation it would smell her without effort.

But it didn’t sound like a mutation. It sounded like a girl. ‘Beth!’ she thought but then she remembered that Beth sounded different. The noise came closer and closer, but the girl didn’t notice her. She passed by and Spinneret moved fast and quiet to take a glimpse of her. She was from District 12. ‘Not bad,’ she thought. ‘Usually they don’t make it past the bloodbath.’ Since the bushes gave her such great cover she decided to wait a bit, in case the same girl came back. But she didn’t.

The surroundings were still unfamiliar to her and she knew that could be very dangerous. If she wanted to stand a chance against the ones who would follow sooner or later, she needed to know her every step. And she needed to find a better way of getting to the top of the cliff again. The evening before, she didn’t take the time for that, because it was already getting dark. She wondered if she would have climbed better if it was still sunny, but decided she climbed rather well and the stone was obviously the Gamemakers fault, so it would have ended the same way. The last night’s rest wasn’t enough to let her leg heal, so climbing was out of the question for now.

Spinneret limped her way through the woods and to the cliff to continue detailing the map in her mind. She found another spring of water, so she emptied and filled her bottle again. With the poisoned fish in the stream she didn’t know how safe it was to drink the water there. And the spring she found yesterday was alright. At one point the cliff turned into a hill again. It would be a piece of cake to climb back up. Or down for that matter. The tributes who took another route to this spot might be luckier than her, unless there was some sort of trap on their way as well. She thought of that flank of the hill that she avoided. Maybe someone was trying to rush over and fell down. Maybe that’s why she heard a cannon that morning.

For some reason she figured that the District 12 girl wouldn’t be too dangerous, but if she already reached her little paradise, the others would follow. Spinneret had to be far more careful now. With her leg she was slower and louder than she hoped to be. The plan was to let the cut heal for a full day. Maybe it would be better then. She already cleaned the wound, so an infection was unlikely…er.

She was already a bit angry with Julia and Eric and everyone who didn’t want to sponsor her. If she wanted to be survive, she needed to be quick. And a limping tribute was no good for a district. She was probably a disgrace for District 4. Too small, too young, too weak, too un-Career Tribute. Someone should have replaced her. She was already annoyed by herself. How could she be so unstable in her mind? She didn’t do too badly. She was alive, she wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t thirsty, she only had a cut. That hurt, but if she had to, she would run just as fast as she always did. As soon as the instincts and adrenaline kicked in, no pain could really stop a human being from fighting to survive. She had seen tributes fight and run and climb with far worse. ‘I’m just not used to this,’ she told herself and just wanted to sit down to redo her bandages, as she heard something.

It wasn’t close like when the District 12 girl passed her in her little hideout. There was talking. Loud talking even. Crownade and Ivory were chatting as if there was nothing in the world that could harm them. As they got closer Diamond and Windrew joined in on the conversation. Spinneret wanted to scold them for being so stupid but instead she dived behind another pair of bushes to hide from them. If they hadn’t been so dumb to attract this much attention they might have even found her. She should thank them actually. If they wouldn’t kill her on sight, of course. As far as she could tell, they were talking about the tributes they killed the other day. Just as she thought: they were the ones who killed District 10 at once. They also made plans who to kill next and how. That was a ridiculous thing to talk about when everyone could hear them loud and clear. And to her relief they didn’t mention her. They probably already forgot that she even existed. But she needed someone to take care of them. The District 12 girl wouldn’t be of any help. She was scared and alone, much like Spinneret. Only that Spinneret was far more frustrated than scared. As they were out of hearing distance she sat up again. For once she was lucky again. With her rushed action from before she didn’t cause any more damage to her leg. Spinneret was never the healer in her family. In fact nobody really was. They all could revive someone if necessary, but when it came to injuries they just flailed around until her mother went to get them to a doctor.

She couldn’t even believe that her leg caused her so much trouble. She had seen far worse and the tributes always did well. This night she would give herself to rest. And tomorrow she had to do something. Maybe she could figure out something about the Careers, but for that she had to stay close to them. Something she knew would be dangerous. She couldn’t risk it just yet. If they were smart they would stick around the water anyway, so they shouldn’t vanish just like that. But then again, they haven’t proven themselves as smart yet. Only as good killers. But were they good survivors? Maybe they would get themselves killed by eating the poisonous fish. There were only few who knew about the differences. And in this arena she was the only one who could know.

She sighed as quietly as possible and gathered some more berries for a snack, slowly following the Career Tributes’ tracks. Her hair would probably start to be a problem soon. It was too flashy, just as her trainer said. But he was so unfriendly that she refused to take his advice. Smearing mud into her hair was one of the things she really wanted to avoid. It would look silly on screen as well, but mostly she didn’t want to give her trainer the satisfaction.

In the evening she heard a scream and shortly after another cannon. The hovercraft appeared not too far away from her. Maybe five hundred meters. She already knew that it would be the girl from District 12. But also that she had to hide now. It was a dull day for her, and she hoped that the Gamemakers didn’t care enough about her to make things more interesting. She just wanted this one day of rest. Tomorrow she would figure something out. Maybe something that she could use against the other tributes. To practice with her knives right now would be suicide. Too loud. The Careers were too close.

So she searched for another hideout between bushes. This time it was an even better one, because she could crawl completely under the bushes. Uncomfortable but safe, as long as she didn’t snore. Which she didn’t as far as she knew. Miles would have a bigger problem here. Maybe it was good that she was the one who came to the arena. Leanna and Lida would be dead already. And Miles could be too. Just like Rick was. He was a good friend. And he died because he helped her. Now she had to make sure he didn’t die in vain. Maybe she could even take revenge. There was a high possibility that the Careers killed him. She almost groaned at the thought and shoved a few berries into her mouth. How could she hope to kill the Careers?

The anthem started to blare from the sky, so she hurried to roll out of her bush hideout to have a good look at the sky. This time the boy from District 5 and the girl from District 12 decorated the sky. Just as she thought: they killed her. Still she needed to figure out how to deal with the Careers. She wriggled herself into her sleeping bag, careful not to bend her knee. Now she could only hope that the Careers didn’t check every single bush around, but she doubted it. They wouldn’t waste their precious time, checking hideouts only tiny girls could use.

With that thought she closed her eyes for the night.

 

She could hear them talking. Spinneret had hidden most of her belongings somewhere for later use and was now sitting in a tree around fifteen meters away from the Careers. They were too busy with themselves to notice her, trying desperately to catch a few fish. Or at least one. Every once in a while she peeked through the leaves that gave her cover from their view and saw them failing greatly. Her leg was dangling from the branch she was sitting on. The day of rest didn’t help at all. The cut only hurt more when it started to heal and then opened again so she might as well keep it moving. But she didn’t care anymore. She needed to use this opportunity. If she didn’t, the Gamemakers would make her life hell in the arena. Not that they didn’t already by putting her into an arena with 23 children out to kill her. There were only ten tributes left, including her. And right over there at the shallow water of the stream were the four strongest. She was hoping for them to catch the fish. They were poisonous and would just kill them like that. The only thing she could blame herself for would be that she didn’t warn them. Not that she wanted them to stay alive. But sadly neither of them was trained to catch fish, and they only kind of skimmed the fishing station in the Training Center.

Oh, if only they had known that the only source of food would be fish. Blah blah blah. Damn Gamemakers blah blah. They shouldn’t have killed Rick right away blah, he would have been useful, blah.

It stung a little to hear them talk about his death like it was no big deal. They were friends. He even made friends with them and they backstabbed him! Now they had to live with the consequences. And she had to live with the consequences of them being too stupid to catch fish. She had to take action, no matter how much she didn’t want to do that. Her backpack and all weapons, but one, were hidden between a rock and a bush. If she survived this action she would go back and could maybe even add a few more useful things to her equipment. The only things she took with her were the lighter, her dice and the one knife she liked to use. She had put it in her belt at her back and it was covered by her jacket. That way she had least something to her own defense.

She climbed from tree to tree, ignoring that her leg didn’t want to let her move as quickly. It had to work or her whole body might be cut very soon. As she was five meters away from them, she hid in such an obvious spot that they had to find her sooner or later. Now that she was this close she could see their sloppy techniques. The boy from District 1 even had a spear while the others had actually crafted useful tools. And they still couldn’t catch a fish. It was ridiculous.

She waited for what felt like an actual eternity and then Ivory, the girl from 2 spotted her. She had to suppress the urge to run away and hide. Of course those people were dangerous, but she still had a chance against them. The chance was tiny and she had to use her wits, but it was a chance nevertheless. And if they didn’t agree to what she had to say, she could still run away. In that case she would have to search for a new backpack or had to wait until they all vanished to return for hers. They better listened to her.

Ivory nudged Diamond and Windrew and whispered Crownade’s name to get his attention and then nodded in Spinnerets direction, as if she was some kind of stupid and easily to startle animal. Crownade grabbed his spear tighter. ‘Oh great,’ she thought and moved to hide behind the trunk of the tree. She really didn’t feel like getting killed the same way Rick was. They didn’t want her around, so she better ran for it.

“Wait!” That was Diamonds voice. The others were apparently just as surprised as Spinneret was herself. “Come back sweetie,” she said. It seemed like she wanted to sound very friendly and like someone Spinneret had to trust.

Slowly she edged her face around the trunk to show them that she was still there. Diamond must have signaled her district buddy to lower the spear. They were all armed, but they didn’t aim a weapon at her.

“Why won’t you come down to us?” Diamond asked. She must have seen this kind of talk on television, because she clearly wasn’t used to this.

Spinneret just looked at them with the biggest and most innocent eyes she could pull off but didn’t say a word.

Windrew jumped in on the one sided conversation and tried his luck in luring her down. “You’re from District 4, aren’t you?”

She nodded and made another step away from the trunk and more into their view.

“What’s your name?” He was better at this than Diamond was.

“Spinneret.”

“I’m Windrew. And these are Ivory, Crownade and Diamond,” he said calmly and pointed towards the others. They nodded when their names were mentioned.

“Hi,” she said shyly. That had a great impact on the others. They relaxed.

“We found some fish,” he said.

‘Oh good, at least I don’t have to make the first move. That’d be suspicious,’ she thought and nodded as if to say that she could see that.

He laughed as if she found out something really embarrassing about them and then said. “We’re a bit clumsy at catching them.”

‘I can see that too.’ She nodded again.

“Would you care to help us?”

Spinneret pretended to think about this offer, looking as scared and shy as she could manage.

“Please come down, we won’t hurt you.” That was Ivory. But with Crownade who still had his spear in his hand it didn’t give anyone the impression that he was peace-loving.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to lure me down so you can kill me?” she said in a fearful voice. She knew they wouldn’t attack her, at least for now, but she needed them to disarm themselves and put their weapons far away. She pointed at Crownade’s spear and the weapons they were carrying.

They shot each other looks and whispered something about how they could convince her to come down. It was pretty obvious that they needed her. Spinneret pretended not to hear them when they talked in hushed voices that they needed to do whatever it took. And that she was only a little girl, they could take her down without weapons if they had to. And with that they probably meant after the meal. They looked back at her.

“Would you feel safer, if we’d put the weapons away?” Crownade offered.

Spinneret had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. That was the dumbest question she ever heard, and she heard a lot of dumb questions at school. She nodded instead.

Apparently they thought it would be best to let her decide where to put the weapons, so she would trust them. It went almost too good for her to be true. She pinched herself and decided that, yes, she was awake. She asked them to put the weapons near a rock around twenty meters away from the stream and asked them to step away from them and return to the water.

They did as she told them to and she finally climbed down the tree.

“See? We’re not that bad are we?” Diamond should really quit the nice girl act. She was terrible at it.

Spinneret shook her head in response. “You’re not,” she agreed.

“Hey, didn’t you have a backpack?” asked Crownade. It was probably him who killed Rick. He was the one who held the spear earlier and he remembered the backpack.

She looked at her feet. “I lost it,” she said. “The boy from 11 took it.” Well, that was a complete lie, but they wouldn’t know.

“Pat? Ah yes, I can see that he would do such a thing!” Ivory nodded to support what she just said.

“But I kept this!” Spinneret said proudly and held up the lighter she kept in her pockets. “We can start a fire with that!” They weren’t very impressed but for the sake of making her feel welcome they would probably put up with a lot of acting on their side. If only they knew how much she was acting. They would kill her on the spot.

Diamond really tried to be Spinneret’s favorite person. Applauding her for her smartness to keep the lighter and she was even observant enough to notice the bandages under the cut of her pants.

“That was when I lost my backpack. The boy, Pat I mean, he attacked me but I was fast enough to save myself,” she explained. “But I can walk, so it’s alright I think. It’s not infected.”

Only now she noticed that the clothes of her fellow tributes were pretty messed up and full of blood, they apparently tried to wash it out.

“Did you get into a fight?” she asked jokingly.

Windrew found that very funny, but the others didn’t. They told her about the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. Apparently Dustin and Helen were very much able to push them back and they escaped without any big injuries. As their District partners died they immediately teamed up. Beth and her District buddy managed to sneak away with backpacks as well. The next day they killed Livestock. Yesterday they finished the girl from District 12. But what actually threw them off was when they tried to mount the flank of that hill. Spinneret was right. It was a trap designed by the Gamemakers. It set free some kind of mutation that they managed to kill, but not before it could cause them damage as well.

She couldn’t see any injuries but she decided to ask them about it when they were eating. People liked to talk when they were relaxed. And they were relaxed when they ate. At least in the Districts. In the Capitol that didn’t matter. They were either always relaxed or never relaxed. These people never stopped to amaze her.

With their permission Spinneret got herself a knife from their pile of weapons. She didn’t want to reveal what she had in her belt. Then her advantage would be gone just like their trust, which would result in a complete disadvantage for her, since they were planning to kill her after the meal anyway.

With the knife she corrected Ivory’s fishing spear and then took it to show them how to catch the fish. She was standing with bare feet in the water waiting for a fish to swim by and then used the spear to push it down to the ground so it couldn’t escape. Then she grabbed it by the gills and held the flailing fish up with a grin. Crownade, Diamond and Windrew tried to copy her and every once in a while they were lucky enough to catch one. Ivory sat beside the water and had the task to prepare the fish for the fire, because her spear was occupied. Spinneret made sure that two of the fish were edible. Luckily they were the smallest and least appetizing looking.

Now that she spent time with them it was really a shame that they met under these circumstances. They weren’t bad, or especially mean or anything. She would have liked them. As she taught them the techniques of fishing they had a lot of fun. They laughed together, especially when Crownade slipped and fell all the way on his face. He wasn’t mad nor was his pride hurt. Still they all would kill her and each other. And she would kill all of them. Because everyone wanted to survive.

As they prepared the fire they kept chatting about how weird the Capitol was compared to the Districts and what great treats they got whenever a tribute from their District won. Everyone’s favorite was the chocolate. Diamond asked her for the lighter and she handed it to her. It was getting late and the sun was setting. If she wasn’t with the Careers she would never have dared to start a fire at this time. It would be suicide. They were pretty useless without their weapons, still they could kill anyone. That much she had to admit.

When Spinneret reached for one of the poisonous fish the Careers stopped her and she had to keep herself from smiling. Everything went just like she planned it.

“No offense, sweetie,” said Diamond. “But you are so small. I think you should take these.” She pressed the edible fish in Spinneret’s hands and she mimed a disappointed face. “We haven’t eaten properly for days,” Diamond explained patiently as the others gathered around the fire and started to roast their fish over the fire. “We really need the energy. You understand that, don’t you?” Her voice was as sweet as the icing on the cookies Spinneret ate in the Capitol.

She sighed and said “Yes, I do.”

“Tomorrow you can have a big one, I promise,” said Ivory and Spinneret looked up in surprise. “Wouldn’t you like to join us? We could use a whole lot more fish than this.” She pointed at the fish on the sticks.

Spinneret was completely irritated by this and so was Crownade. He had probably already planned how to kill her as quick and painless as possible. He couldn’t stand it when someone or something was suffering, he always killed the fish Spinneret tossed him immediately, Diamond and Windrew threw the fish to Ivory so she would deal with them. That gave her hope that Rick had a quick death.

It seemed that the Careers liked her enough – well found her useful enough – to keep her around. It was almost too bad that she didn’t feel the same way. But for the sake of getting this across as fast as possible she happily accepted.

“I’d love to! Tomorrow I can catch a whole lot more! We can have a real feast! We won’t even know what  _Hunger_  Games are!” she said excitedly while she held her fish over the fire.

They had to wait a pretty long time for their fish to look decently roasted and when she told them they were fine, the Careers sank their teeth into the fish.

She wondered if the commentators already revealed her plan to the viewers. They must have known that the fish was poisonous.

The Careers told her that they had barely eaten for as long as they were in the Arena, which only proved that the Gamemakers didn’t put any food in the Cornucopia. They all agreed that it was very odd.

“Didn’t you say that you fought a mutation?” she asked.

“Yes we did!” Windrew spoke while chewing his fish. “But we didn’t want to eat a mutation. You never know what kind of effects that would have.” He looked at her as if he wanted to ask if she didn’t pay attention in training.

She just made innocent eyes and ate her fish. It would take a while for the poison to do what it could do best. So she could as well ask them more about the fight with the mutation.

“What did it look like?”

They described a wolf like creature with long claws and fangs. Everyone agreed that it looked particularly ugly. And she grinned because somewhere someone in the Capitol would be offended that their creation was called ugly.

“And you said it attacked you? Are you hurt?” she asked.

“We got injured pretty bad, but,”Crownade pointed upwards to the sky. “Our sponsors got us a present.”

Ivory pulled out a small plastic pot from her pockets and held it up. “It stops the bleeding immediately. And it helps with the healing.” She revealed her forearms. Spinneret could see the marks the claws must have made and they looked like they had few weeks to heal instead of a few days.

“Can I have that for my leg?” Spinneret held out her free hand for the pot, but Ivory put it back into her pocket.

“No.” she said. “You can move just fine with your leg. This is for important things.”

That was annoying, but also proved one thing. The poison was about to strike. It would make them cranky for a bit. Earlier she might have given her the medicine. But for now she had to get out of the dangerous zone. She didn’t want to risk that one of them suddenly decided to snap her neck.

“Oh, I see. Yes, we should really save the medicine for later use,” she agreed. “Look what I can do!” With that she climbed up a tree to a branch far enough above them so they couldn’t just grab them. “It barely even hurts.”

Diamonds brain was still stuck on the idea to make Spinneret feel as welcome as possible, she cheered for her, and it almost broke her heart that the girl from District 1 would be dead soon. Almost.

She had to keep them distracted somehow.

“Why didn’t you eat the berries, if you were so hungry?” she asked them. She wanted to seem casual, so they wouldn’t bother questioning the tree climbing. The poison would numb their mind, but that didn’t mean they would turn into complete imbeciles.

“We did. But we’re not like you, Spinneret,” Windrew said. “We’re not tiny. We need more than berries to keep strong. Someone has to win the games, you know?”

“I know,” she agreed and was satisfied to see that Crownade’s limbs started to twitch. She climbed higher on the tree, just in case.

“What’s going on?!” Ivory followed with the twitching. She shot a glance to the others, who looked just as panicked as she did.

“What’s the matter?” Spinneret looked at them as if she had nothing to do with that. “What are you doing?”

They started yelling that their legs and arms weren’t under control. She really hoped nobody was around to hear them. It would give everything away. Eventually they even realized that she tricked them. They threatened her all together, but she remained calm on her branch. She knew they were very scared. And if she was honest, so was she. She was killing four human beings. As they finally stopped screaming and twitching, she descended from her tree and approached them. She had seen this so many times on television, but it only looked easy. Then she pulled the knife from the back of her belt.

 She could see the fear on their faces. They were dying but still conscious.

“It’s quicker this way. You won’t feel a thing. The poison is already paralyzing and numbing you,” she explained. They were too weak to run or move their arms properly, but they were trying to get away. Not much faster than snails. It looked pathetic. “You will die anyway, might as well do it fast.”

She went over to Crownade. He always had the decency to kill his victims fast. But sadly he was also the one who murdered her friend. The act of slitting someone’s throat wasn’t as easy as she thought. The first cut she made wasn’t deep enough, he’d die an even more painful death. The noises he made were the stuff of nightmares. She grabbed his hair to steady the position as she brought her knife to his neck again. Everything was disgusting and she nearly puked all over him. The second time she cut his throat she managed to do it properly. His heart was still pumping and his blood was everywhere. She just killed an otherwise pretty nice guy. The others weren’t easier. She didn’t apologize to them. They would have done the same to her. They wanted to survive just as badly as she did.

 

Luckily she already sat at the stream. She had to clean off the blood immediately. She didn’t know if their blood could poison her as well through the cuts on her hand, at least that’s what she wanted the audience to think. She wanted to get their blood off her clothes. Off her skin. And maybe she was a little bit paranoid about the poison.

She left her jacket and her bloody pants to soak in the stream as the cannons fired. But she was still too close to the bodies for the hovercraft to come and collect the bodies. With shaky steps she approached the corpses, seeking out their backpacks and pockets. As soon as she had Ivory’s medicine in her hands she smeared the lotion on her hands and her leg. It was the good medicine from the Capitol. Maybe she’d be lucky and she could walk without pain by tomorrow. In the backpacks she found rope, a blanket that she probably wouldn’t need anyway unless the nights turned very cold very soon. Four full bottles of water and a sheet of plastic, which might be of use against rain. She could even have a tent in case she wanted to be really flashy and dead in a day.

The sky turned dark, but she didn’t bother looking up as the anthem played. She didn’t need to see the faces of the four tributes she killed. She could do that right here. The other tributes were probably shocked to see that the four most powerful opponents died at once. Maybe they thought it was a trap from the Gamemakers. That would give her time to come up with more strategies. Maybe she really had a chance of winning. She was so lost in thought that she barely noticed the parachute.

Did she get sponsors already? That was fast. But she didn’t need anything, not that she’d know. Did it come too late for the Careers?

There was a tiny box at the end of it and as she opened it, she only found a note. It said:

 

                               Wow, they were fucking retarded.

-          Durius

 

She stared at the piece of paper and turned it around. It was only that.

“Did you just waste a whole lot of money to send me this note? Isn’t that illegal or something?” she said loud enough for the cameras and microphones to catch it. “ _That_  is fucking retarded.” She couldn’t help but laugh. The situation was so absurd that she had to giggle. She was in arena full of death, she just killed four teenagers and one of their mentors more or less congratulated her on that.

The hovercraft still didn’t collect the bodies, for which she was glad. At least for the moment. That way the others wouldn’t know where she was. It pained to see their blood spread on the cold stones, but right now she was safer this way.

She glanced over to the corpses. A little girl should probably start crying. She couldn’t.  She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t even feel miserable. She felt empty and wondered if they felt the same when they killed the other tributes. Probably not, they had each other and could reassure themselves that what they did was right. Necessary. She was alone. And she would win alone if she had the chance.

She didn’t have to put up an act for anyone right now. The Capitol got to see her as a killer. And her family was already upset, what difference would it make to them of their youngest family member would sit there and stare at corpses for half an hour.

After a while she forced herself to look away and gathered her clothes. She put them on a branch near the fire to let them dry and left the place to get her backpack. She was barely ten meters away when the hovercraft appeared. As she returned the bodies of the other tributes were gone. All that was left was the blood that soaked the ground.

Spinneret decided she shouldn’t pay it any mind anymore and started packing her backpack with the new supplies. She didn’t think she’d need the other bottles of water. They’d just be heavy. She could hide them somewhere, but carrying them wouldn’t give her any advantage. The rope could be very useful; it was long enough to be used for one of the snares she learned in training. She stuffed it into her backpack. The blanket was useless to her. The nights weren’t that cold and it’d only take up too much space. But there was enough room for the plastic sheet. Surely she would find use for it.

She went to examine the weapons. Spears, bow and arrow, swords and a chain. The chain was a very interesting weapon, but she couldn’t use it and she had no trainer to teach her. They had a few more knives, but she didn’t need more than she already had. She hid the weapons. They could only be used to her disadvantage. It was too bad that the hovercraft wouldn’t carry them out except for when the weapon was still stuck in the corpse.

Since the hovercraft appeared about an hour late the other tributes must have guessed that a tribute killed them. No mutation would stay for this long. The bodies would be sent back to their districts. Because of her four families would mourn right now. Their parents, brothers, sisters. They hated her now. Now and forever.

She sighed and took out the throwing knives. This would probably be the only opportunity she had to practice with them. So she practiced all night, she couldn’t sleep.

She was afraid that Windrew, Diamond, Crownade and Ivory would come back to take her with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kind comments and your nice words so far! It makes me really happy to see that you enjoy my fanfiction.


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